Perfect Poise: a Perfecto Prep tale
by Brithund
Summary: Perfecto Prep: the much, much better rival to the low-lifes at Acme Looniversity! At least, that's how its students see it. What's it like to live there?
1. Chapter 1

**Perfect Poise: a Tiny Toons Tale**

**(Author's note: I've always been intrigued by Perfecto Prep, Acme Looniversity's much wealthier arch rivals. Here we see things from their side. This takes place the Autumn before the main Tiny Toon characters graduate, as described in my tales "Spring Fever", "LoonQuest" and "Seven Brides for Seven Bunnies". Now read on…)**

**Far above Acme Acres and the continent it sat on, an ancient Toon satellite swung in its long, **

**elliptical orbit. On the furthest point of its trip it reached far out, nearly half-way to the moon and a long way from potential harm's way before swinging in to take a closer look every eleven days.**

** MOLOT 19 was old. Its surface was scarred with encounters with space junk and scoured by the solar wind. Its batteries were long degraded, and the ancient computer inside only woke up when the eroded solar cells happened to point directly at the sun as it lazily tumbled. Once there had been a whole fleet of them – that was when the red hammer and anvil on the nose cone had been bright and fresh. If it realised it was the last of its kind was debatable. As the old computer stirred briefly into life under the sun's rays, it did remember that last orbit it had seen something at a certain grid location that it really ought to take a close look at next time round.**

** The targeting computer had the grid reference. It had never heard the name "Acme Acres" – but that was exactly where it would be looking in another nine days' time.**

* * *

** Several miles to the East of that famous city was an establishment that was well known in somewhat exclusive circles; the refined and exclusive Perfecto Prep University. While the military had specialist training grounds for urban, desert and suburban warfare, Perfecto specialised in training its tender students throughout their salad days as corporate raiders, highly unscrupulous lawyers and generally how to be "last toon standing" when the dust settled in any high risk, high profit venture. Their salad days comprised very good quality and very expensive salads.**

** Honesty, decency, and generally being a good sport – the virtues were all avidly studied at Perfecto. Studied for much the same reason a hunter studies the tracks and habits of something plump and dim-witted that Nature obviously intended to be fleeced, plucked and fricasseed by those rightfully higher on the food chain.**

** It was the first day of the Autumn term, and Perfecto Prep basked in its usual weather for the time of year. Black clouds hung low on the summit of the mountain it perched on, and occasional bursts of lightning cast into sharp relief the damp faces of the coach-load of new arrivals. Fifty toons trudged up the long, winding road through the grounds from where they had been dropped at the main gates – they were the usual mix of species, some human but the rest comprised two dozen different species, all united in style at the minute as they were all perfecting their impressions of drowned rats. The gravel drive was long and winding, and some looked up at the damp stone statue of Miss Hazel, the "morally unfettered" enchantress who was the founding Principal of Perfecto, as it cast long stark shadows with every flash of lightning.**

** Watching them cross the drawbridge from the triple-glazed comfort of the senior's recreational lounge high above, a dozen elegantly dressed toons lounged on fine leather couches, drinks in paw as they cast occasional glances down at the miserable procession below. **

** "Fresh-things," A yellow-green drake raised an eyebrow as he regarded the soaked arrivals now making their way up the steps. "Oh my. Were we ever that bad? I think not."**

** "Danforth, darling, you were twice as bad." Standing beside him, a tall and stunningly beautiful duck lady tossed back her long mane of purple head-feathers, its artistically tangled mass reaching half-way to her tail. "And I took care - great care - to obtain film of that and a lot worse that you did later. Even on your first day you looked like something pulled backwards through a drainpipe."**

** Danforth Drake smiled. "You did have film, sweet Margot. Until I took great care to obtain all the copies. A festive little fire they made. Did you get all the copies I had of your early days, you may wonder? Oh, the things you did before you learned discretion." He shook his head in mock disapproval.**

** Margot Mallard pressed close to her boyfriend and business partner. "Well, one day you'll perhaps find out just how many copies of such an embarrassing little item I still have - if you ever release those films of me." She gave a wicked grin. "Ah, doesn't it just make the game interesting? And down there - how delightful, that they don't even know it, but they're pieces on the board already. Rather damp little pawns - but pieces, just the same."**

** Danforth nodded, his bill clicking slightly against Margot's as the fowl pair kissed beaks like touching glasses raised in some hellish toast. "So hard to believe - but one day some of them may sit here, bishops and kings and queens in the game. But none of them such a deliciously dark Queen as you."**

** On the couch next to them, another couple sat together contemplating the arrival of the new students. Both were pure-strain rat toons, he with the dark red-brown quiff of head-fur and a look of savage concentration as he stared at student records on his laptop - she with light reddish-brown fur and an easy gaze that still missed nothing. Roderick and Rhubella Rat (no relation) were a shining example of how to achieve success at Perfecto, as many a trampled toon left scattered along their ruthless ascent could attest.**

** "Rhubella. What do you think? We've got the usual scatter. Any that deserve - special **

**interest? Or shall we wait till we see who claws to the top of the pile in a week or two, before lending them a helping paw?"**

** Rhubella Rat raised an eyebrow. "Lending, Roddy? If they only knew your interest rates." She smiled, her naked tail swishing as she reviewed the student files. Roderick had a mind like a steel rat-trap, though with his species that was not a nice image. She used it anyway. **

** "Hmm." Rhubella fast-forwarded through the profiles. "This one - and this one - and this one - don't quite fit our style. I'd bet a wooden nickel they don't get past the first year."**

** Roderick considered the bet. "It'd be the first semester they should get kicked out from - but they've paid for the year. They might turn themselves round. Quite amusing, what some toons will do if you let them know they're on the way out of the door. Still - how could we stay exclusive - unless we -"**

** "Exclude a few, every now and then." Rhubella finished for him, her rat tail stroking his with a slithering noise. "Well. We're the senior year now, Roddy. It's our duty I suppose - let's go and tell the fresh-things what they've got to look forward to."**

** Margot Mallard's eyes went wide in glee. "Don't you just love the look on their little faces when they find out?"**

* * *

**Down on the ground floor, the relief at getting out of the storm and finally into Perfecto's hallowed halls did not last long. The doors were closed behind them by silent, liveried servants and for a minute or so the fifty first-years were left to their own devices.**

** A decidedly miserable-looking black cat sneezed violently. "Despite the similar architecture - when it comes to a good reception, Hogwarts, this isn't." She scanned the faces around her - a wall of expressions ranged from cautious, indifferent to hostile. Perfecto had a reputation of only supporting the best toons (measured to a certain local standard of "best"), and would happily let a rising tide of Dip take the hindmost.**

** Only one returned a friendly smile. A pink-furred toon rodent stepped forwards and offered her a towel. "Won't do to catch cold on the first day," she said. "We'll have enough to worry about."**

** The feline accepted it gratefully. It was an interesting if limited technique; instead of using the standard "body pocket" this toon carried her supplies in a bulky, waterproofed knapsack. "Thanks! I'm Felicia Felid." She noted the toon's vaguely English accent - and a few other unusual features. Although she looked rat-like in her size and general shape, her large rounded ears and finely furred tail suggested some mouse ancestry.**

** The rodent shook paws, ignoring the incredulous stares and raised eyebrows from her new classmates. "Sapphire Van Hoogstraaten. Looks like making friends isn't the done thing around here." She winked. "So let's call it mutual self-interest for now."**

** Just then, there was a stirring of the curtains from what turned out to be a large balcony looking out over the entrance hall. The curtains drew back to reveal a balcony the size of a small theatre stage, except that in this case the audience was seated relaxed on it, looking down.**

** "Very like the old amphitheatre. And we're down where they send in the lions," Sapphire whispered, her bright eyes gleaming reflections from the spotlights that suddenly snapped onto illuminate the new arrivals.**

** An elegantly dressed figure stepped forwards - a smartly casual rat, flanked by a matched pair of huge wolverines wearing Perfecto athletic starter jackets. He looked down at the new arrivals for a minute in silence, keenly scanning each face as his rodent teeth gleamed in a slight sneer. **

** "Oh, dear me. What HAVE they sent us this time?" The rat shook his head in evident disbelief. "You've obviously come to the wrong place - this is Perfecto Prep. To be a Perfecto student - what is it? It's to be the best. The winners - always, against any odds, by any means. Money will get you in here but it won't get you through. You'll need more than that. And if not - there's the door, and a lot of you will be heading out of it very soon." He waved a paw at the senior toons around him. "And who are we to talk? We're the ones who are still here, after everything they could throw at us. Whereas most of you won't be." He stood down, before seeming to remember something. "Oh yes, I almost forgot," he looked back over his shoulder. "Welcome to Perfecto Prep University."**

**Half an hour later, the new arrivals were shown to their new dorm rooms. They were elegant and spacious; the first year female toons' rooms were all along one corridor and Felicia found Sapphire conveniently just across the hall.**

** "They don't waste money here in making you too welcome," she commented, both doors open as the toons unpacked. **

** In the corridor, a hawk girl stopped to survey the scene. "Don't fall for everything they try on us here." She gave a supercilious smile. "I'm Irma Falco. And that little speech back there was straight out of any military boot-camp. Cheap psychology."**

** "Oh, yes. The Sergeant's speech to all the new recruits. '**_**You 'orrible lot are all nothing but pond-scum and there's not one of you will ever be fit to make a soldier**_**' - I've seen the films too." Sapphire winked. **

** "My Sister graduated two years ago, and she got through it all," Irma preened her still damp feathers. "She could. I can. You, I don't know about."**

** "What say we team up?" Felicia suggested. "We've no reason to trust anyone, including each other yet. But with three of us watching each other's backs - we've more of a chance to get through."**

** "Sensible," Sapphire applauded. "And the first one to sell out her comrade - will have the other two after her. Should keep us honest with each other - at least till the prize is really worth having."**

** Irma nodded. "I'll go with that for now. Deal?" She stuck out a feather-hand. **

** "Deal." Sapphire and Felicia shook paws with her. "Now - to business."**

**An hour later, Sapphire's room was the setting for the first meeting of Clique One, a name Sapphire had invented to general approval. The rodent was leafing through the printed timetables that she had found by the bedside table. "Tomorrow they start us in early. Gym, Social Status Assurance, Ethics (Perfecto style), and then two hours of hazing before lunch."**

** Felicia's tail drooped. "They actually have it written down on the timetable?"**

** A raptor beak gave a cruel smile. "We'll live through it. And someday it'll be our turn to dish it out. With interest." She stretched. "I'll never say it to her face of course but - my sister came through it hard as diamond and as good to have around."**

** "I'll stick with being Sapphire for the time being," that rodent commented, looking through the brochures. "Well - you can trade us some useful information. I'm a … generalist. I've been brought up do - ooh, all sorts of things." Her rodent teeth gleamed as she smiled. "You could say I'm well-travelled. Very, very well travelled. You might be surprised."**

** "You're English? I'm from BosToon, myself," Felicia volunteered.**

** The pink mouse raised an ear, as she contemplated her reply. "My family are … world citizens. We do business where the money is. I grew up mostly on my grandparents' place in Spain, nice little villa on the Costa del Sol. Sometimes we had to go off to Rio and places in a hurry."**

** "With the family business?" Felicia asked, intrigued.**

** "You could put it like that," Sapphire laughed. "To do with the family business, yes."**

** The three toons relaxed guardedly, while Irma vainly hunted for cameras and bugs in the room. **

** "This IS Perfecto, as they keep telling us," Sapphire's whiskers twitched. "They don't do things on the cheap. If there's a bug here it'll be hidden under the plaster, a professional job. If there's anything to find just like that, it'll be because they want you to find it."**

** Irma nodded, convinced. "They don't buy their stuff from the ACME discount catalogue." She stretched, looking out at the rain-streaked windows. "It's going to be a long day tomorrow - time to hit the nest."**

** Sapphire stood, the rodent's finely furred tail swishing. "Oh yes. A good night's sleep will help. So I don't expect we're meant to get one. If there's not a hazing raid of some kind I'll be very surprised." She raised an eyebrow. "Here's my first contribution - watch, and I'll show you how to wire your door handle to the mains."**

* * *

**Felicia awoke with the dawn, feeling the fine Egyptian cotton sheets smooth and comfortable against her fur. At Perfecto, she would rarely wake up with tangled "bed fur", she noted with approval.**

** "A good night's sleep, thanks to Sapphire," she addressed the world and any listening devices. It had not been wholly undisturbed - about three o'clock had come shouts and banging from down the corridor - as some seniors had evidently come for a "wake-up call". Felicia had noted the screams and smell of scorched fur drifting in from the corridor outside as the intruders had tried to do that to Clique One, and promptly fallen asleep again.**

** Carefully disconnecting the mains cable from the door handle, she took a look outside and removed the "Do not Disturb" sign from the handle - after all, she could hardly say nobody had been warned. All was quiet, and only a lingering scent of scorched fur remained in the corridor. Wedging the door shut, she tried out the luxurious shower in her room - everything was en-suite, down to a powerful fur dryer.**

** "I think," Felicia announced to the world and possibly the microphones, "That I'm going to like it here."**

* * *

"**At my old school, we did a lot of practical science," Sapphire announced in a conversationally loud voice, as the first-year girls assembled in the corridor before breakfast. Most of them looked irritated and short on sleep; evidently they had been chivvied out by older students for a gratuitous "French-Canadian fire drill" for an hour in the rain. "Our Science teacher, she told us with three-phase electrical power, it's not really dangerous. There's a positive, a neutral and a zero wire - if you touch them all at exactly the same time they cancel out and you won't get a shock." **

** Felicia noted several of her new classmates taking notes. She waited till nobody was too close. "Is that true?" She whispered in the rodent girl's large ear.**

** "No." Sapphire smiled happily, and they went into breakfast. **

* * *

**Social Status Awareness class was a course unique to Perfecto Prep. The class was taken by a stunningly beautiful pigeon lady, whose golden head-feathers reached down to her shoulders in an exquisite display of grooming. She wore a finely tailored and utterly respectable business skirt suit that even so had half the male toons' eyes bulging as they traced its curves. A long train of tail-feathers swished elegantly behind her arranged in an equally impeccably coiffure.**

** "Good morning, class," she cast an appraising eye across the room. "I'm Professor Hatta Mari, and as I teach several classes I'll be seeing a lot of you." Her voice was smooth, with just the trace of a European accent. "At the cheap place, Acme Looniversity, they have a School of Hard Knocks. Here at Perfecto - there are hard knocks around in the world, and many of them. But we teach you how to dodge them." A flawless eyebrow rose. "And hopefully - divert them to land where you want them to."**

** "My sister told me about her," Irma whispered to Sapphire and Felicia "She's had an impressive career - spied for both sides in World War 2. She's been here since 1944."**

** "Not 1945? Well I suppose it's not rocket science," Sapphire whispered back.**

** Either the desks were wired for sound or Professor Mari was an adept at lip and beak-reading. She gave a tight smile, nodding towards where Clique One sat. "Miss Falco - Miss Van Hoogstraaten. As some of you seem to know, I have indeed been here since 1944. Our class on Profit Pursuit isn't till tomorrow, when I'll tell you something of that. But I'll mention it now - if you have to change sides, do it while your old currency is still worth something to your new employers." She fixed them with a steely eye. "And you're both fined a dollar each for talking in class."**

"**She fined you one dollar?" Felicia smirked, as they walked towards their next class. "I think I can afford to be Class Clown, at that rate."**

** "Oh no you can't." Irma raised an eyebrow. "It doubles for every offence. Exponential growth. How's your math? Try acting up all year and see how much being Class Clown costs at the end of it."**

** "As you Americans say," Sapphire murmured, her bright eyes gleaming "Ain't that the sixty-four thousand dollar question?"**

* * *

**Up in the third-year lounge, the seniors were amusing themselves with the edited highlights of the new arrivals' first day as captured by Perfecto's comprehensive security cameras. **

** "Inspiring," Margot Mallard clapped her hands together in glee. "Our second-years have even learned a lesson or two from last night's hazing raid on the fresh-things." She rewound to the point where a certain second-year mastiff was just about to yank Irma Falco's door open. "Cherri-Jo's certainly got the physique of a brick - shame she's got the intellect to match."**

** "Indeed," Danforth raised an eyebrow. "Her sister Sherri-Jo is in the new class, too. It looks like there's some sharper ones though. We'll have to think of something humbling for the fresh-things' first main assignment. Something - classical. Something believable. Something with a very nasty sting in the tail."**

** "A classic raid - on Acme Loo! It's a win-win situation," Margot's eyes gleamed. "Someone will get taken down a peg or two, no matter who wins." The fact that Perfecto had often tried such things over the years with generally dire results was quietly swept under her mental carpet.**

** "The blue rabbit. I want a sports trophy off him," Roderick Rat looked over the drake's shoulder at the screen. "We'll have the girls raid him. More humiliating for him if they succeed." He snickered. "And if he catches them - I bet they teach them at Acme to never hit a lady."**

** "Humph!" Rhubella's tail twitched. "In which case, I want the boys to raid that spooky loon." Her eyes narrowed. "She beat me in the July swimming race despite all my - refinements." At Perfecto, cheating was what other people did. "If you want something classical - how classic is a panty raid?"**

** Danforth cleared his throat. The drake cast an eye at Margot, then at himself. "Rhubella, have you ever - noticed something about us avians and our outfits? As in, what we're not required to wear?"**

** The rat girl relaxed, nodding. "Oh, I just might have. I know it's an impossible task. If they get caught trying, Shirley will blast them to a crisp. My plan's a lose-lose situation. We'll see which is more entertaining."**

End Chapter One


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**Luncheon at Perfecto was served at one precisely; Felicia's nose twitched as Clique One found seats on the first-year tables. These were long, elegantly polished mahogany antiques, with neatly printed gilt-edged menus and full silver service place settings.**

** "No Mystery Meat in this establishment, then," Felicia selected the grilled trout, and a uniformed waiter whisked her order off to the kitchens.**

** "No soya substitute, either," Sapphire contemplated the cheeses; they had imported Wensleydale with Grand Marnier, or genuine Stinking Bishop. She winked, looking around at the male toons' table. "Thinking of tasty – we have quite a selection of beefcake." Her eyes scanned the various species of males, not missing a detail. "I see the other year are all dining grouped in sororities and fraternities and such. Must make it harder for poisoning at table. Very sensible."**

** "Mmm." Irma inclined her beak. "Some interesting boys." She turned away to make it harder for any beak-readers. "That big vulture with the steel hand. Stylish."**

** "Oh, yes!" Sapphire's eyes twinkled. "It's not just some medical issue prosthetic. It's modelled on a late 15****th**** century German armour, a top of the range Augsburg style gauntlet. You can tell by the corrugated surfaces. A genuine one in good condition would be worth thousands of pounds, just for the one gauntlet."**

** "You know all this stuff?" Felicia's ears went up.**

** Sapphire smiled. "My family business sometimes takes us places around the world. Art galleries, museums – I know a bit."**

** Just then the food arrived, and there was no more conversation. The chefs at Perfecto were extremely good.**

** "Well, then" Felicia dabbed her muzzle with her napkin half an hour later. "If the rest of the meals are like that - we'd better put in for the sports teams or we'll start piling on the pounds."**

* * *

** There was half an hour spare before their next class (Star School) so Clique One retired to one of the balconies where they could look back into the main hall without being casually overheard.**

** "We need some more allies, don't you think ?" Irma nodded towards the male first-years. "They won't be - competing in the same way as the other girls, with us. And they could be fun."**

** "Oh, yes!" Sapphire's tail twitched. "But - better not rush in. Some of these will be poor bets, and out of here rather sharpish. Can't waste our attentions on any but the best."**

** "Well, THAT goes without saying," Irma's beak clicked derisively. "Time to start gathering information - see who looks likely." She paused. "Unless you've any objection, I'll target the avians and the reptile guys."**

** "Be my guest," Felicia murmured. "Poultry is something I want on my plate, not as my date."**

** "Yes. Those odd-looking toons there - do you have many of that sort?" Sapphire nodded towards three of the human toons at the near end of the table.**

** Felicia blinked. "What sort do you mean? I don't see anything particular about them."**

** "Ohh - as in, hardly any fur, no tails, not much of a snout - little inconspicuous things like that."**

** "Human toons? Well - yes. They're just toons like the rest." Felicia's eyebrow rose. There was something decidedly odd about Sapphire, she decided. **

** "Interesting. I want at least one to - study." Sapphire whispered. Then she looked at her watch, a heavy Rolex. "Oops! Nearly time for Star School."**

* * *

**Star School was another course unique to Perfecto Prep. Its teacher was an elephant of regal bearing, a Professor Stanley who had been persuaded to return from his self-imposed exile in France to teach that year. Rumour had it that a great deal of money and the chance to get within striking range of an old enemy at Acme Looniversity had much to do with it.**

** "So - you think you're cut out to be Perfecto students, according to this list," the elephant tapped the class roster with his trunk. "In this class, you learn what it is to be a star. You'll learn how to read a contract like your life depended on it - because it does. How to deal with Paparazzi so they won't run after you again - even when they get used to their new legs - and can't even sue you. Oh yes, and before you can get that far you need talent. How much special talent? Something at least as powerful as this." He clapped his blunt paws together, and a feline senior-year girl entered the room. She was a short blue and black Siamese feline, whose ice-blue eyes were wide and innocent-looking. At Perfecto, things were rarely what they seemed.**

** "This is Ichi. She's an Anime transfer student with an inbuilt talent. Show them, Ichi." Professor Stanley grabbed what looked like an opaque welding mask and hastily put it on.**

** The kitten gave a shallow bow to the first-years. For an instant a flash of malicious glee passed over her adorable features. Then she concentrated, looking at the class, and began to purr.**

** "_Mrrrrrreeeeewwwwwwww…"_ the kitten's eyes seemed to become bigger as she exerted her force. The atmosphere in the room seemed to fill with a sickly sweetness, though no actual scent was involved.**

** Felicia gulped, feeling seasick. To her horror the kitten pulled out a ball of fluffy pink yarn and began to bat it from one adorable paw to the other. Dozens of sparkling highlights twinkled in the kitten's eyes, which were getting bigger and more liquid by the second. Screams and moans emerged from the rest of the class who could not look away.**

** "_MewwwWWwwwwwwwwWWWwwwwww!"_ The angles of the room seemed to blur and twist as Ichi unleashed her full force. The optically directed cuteness hit the class like a tangible wave; two ran for the door and half a dozen were explosively sick on the spot - three more made it to the fourth-floor window and hurled themselves out, laughing and howling maniacally all the way to the ground.**

** Felicia managed to keep her lunch down only by looking away, though the angles of the room seemed to be warping and running like wax. Then she noticed that some of her class had Talents of their own to use. One of the toon humans, the one with the Central European accent, was no longer there - something was, but it was more like a cloaking void that he was presumably shielded inside. A yellow duck girl was chanting under her breath, her finger tracing a rune that hung like solid lightning in the air between her and the Anime kitten, somehow protecting its caster. Then she looked at Sapphire.**

** The rodent girl was sitting in something like a bubble of calm in the gale of cuteness - it was like having an invisible object revealed by water flowing around it. Toon "shtick" effects penetrated all toon materials like a tunnel paint portal going through a mountain, but not apparently Sapphire. The rodent looked on apparently unaffected but keenly interested in the reactions of her class.**

** "That's not possible," Felicia whispered to herself. Just then the kitten at the front relaxed, and a dozen toons collapsed with gasps of relief. In the first few rows the furniture was blistered and warped, and even the floor seemed to bulge somehow out of true though not in any way a spirit level would register.**

** Professor Stanley raised his welding mask, the High Dourness steel having saved his mental balance. "Very good, Ichi. A fine demonstration." The elephant's smile was mocking. "And thank you, class, for some of you revealing abilities you kept quiet about on the application form. Think of this as a demonstration. All abilities can be used as leverage. Not only as weapons - that's one use, but so obvious. At Acme Looniversity -" his trunk waved dismissively "they'd waste it as comedy gags like that scene-stealing rabbit. At Perfecto - you'll learn to put whatever you have into more … profitable uses."**

* * *

"**Well, that blew a few stealth shields and secret shticks out of the water," After class the shocked survivors pooled in the corridor. The speaker was the yellow-feathered duck, who had proved surprisingly adept at runic magic. "I was trying to save that one for a rainy day."**

** "Around here it looks like they turn the fire hoses on us as soon as we're in range - to see who can put up an umbrella, and who just ends up as a drip." Sapphire nodded. "I'm Sapphire Van Hoogstraaten. That was - interesting."**

** "Eva Frundsberg." A yellow duck bill dipped in reply. "Our Professors do like to know what they're dealing with. A lot of people here aren't … too revealing on their forms - as long as the tuition cheque doesn't bounce, the administrators here let qualified toons in, though. Some of us are from exotic backgrounds."**

** "You don't say." Sapphire winked. "So, are there any more with talents like yours around?"**

** Eva indicated the vulture with the steel hand, who was talking animatedly with Irma. "He's one. He's got psi artefacts anyway." She snickered. "Had artefacts. I felt two of them burn out. And that human over there - the one with the null shield. I think that's it." She concentrated hard on Sapphire. "Apart from you."**

** The pink-furred rodent's eyes almost emulated the anime kitten as they went wide and innocent-seeming. "Little me? Amazing powers? I wish."**

** Eva gave a knowing smile. "It's like you don't even exist to Toon shticks. I can't read you at all. Not yet. But I will - you can bet on it."**

"**And now - your first assignment." The speaker was one of the senior years, a tall grey equine. "I'm Hans von Haflinger. "These aren't for class marks. These are more important. Win these and your status goes up. That gets you the things around here you can't buy."**

** "You won't get into the fraternities or sororities without winning your way in." Next to him a cow-girl (in species terms if not Western costume) looked around the class with practiced disdain. She twitched an ear. "I'm Luanne Lecroy. If you want to be accepted - it'd not just how much money you've got. It's what you're willing to do to get ahead."**

** Hans winked at her. "We've picked these assignments carefully. Some need brains, some need muscle. What you haven't got - I won't tell you how to get it. That's part of the test." He pressed a button on his T-pad, and the first-years all felt their devices shiver as the message reached them. "Now - find who you're teamed with - and get going!"**

* * *

** Sapphire discovered she had been teamed with a wolf girl named Corinne and a mastiff, Sherri-Jo. Her ears went up when she spotted what they had to do. "Breaking and entering, burglary too," she mused. "Oh well."**

** Corinne nodded. "Against Acme Looniversity, it's not a crime. It's open warfare. Anything goes."**

** "As long as the local police know that," the rodent commented. "So, what's the plan? We take a look at the place first?"**

** "No need. At Perfecto they keep dossiers on everybody." Corinne's teeth glistened sharply as the wolf smiled. "Let's take a look at the target - then load up and head out."**

* * *

** It was mid-afternoon when the three Perfecto girls stood in a pleasant woodland clearing a few miles away, having been dropped off at the nearest road junction by the chauffeurs. In the clearing was a grass-covered octagonal slab of steel and concrete about ten yards across, that evidently slid aside on rails.**

** "Must be a rough neighbourhood," Sapphire commented, looking at the online ACME catalogue on the T-pad they had been issued with. "That's quite some front door - says it's guaranteed to resist a blast of 1 MegaToon at 1 mile or your money back." She considered the issue. "If they ever failed in use - I don't think the ACME returns department had many toons coming back to complain after that."**

** "Never mind that. How do we get in?" Corinne looked at the page. "Looks like ACME did another of its famous conversion jobs. They'll have screwed up somewhere - they always do."**

** "Hmm." Sapphire checked the details of the home installation kit. Apparently second-hand silo doors were a good seller amongst rabbits and other burrowing types wanting a really sturdy front door. "It says here there's a control box - if we get in there we can play '**_**don't cut the red**__**wire**_**'. One combination should be able to open it quietly."**

** "Quietly? Why bother when we've got this?" Sherri-Jo waved the gas axe she had "acquired" at Perfecto from what a film studio would call a Props Department. She lugged the fuel canisters into position.**

** "I don't think that's such a good idea," Sapphire looked at the gas cutter that Corrine was lighting up. She edged away from the big octagonal slab. "One - Buster Bunny will know someone's been in here if you cut his door open rather than pick the lock. Two - you don't know what's in there. Alarms, cameras, attack toons, anything." She raised an eyebrow. "We don't know for a fact he didn't buy the missile that went with the door."**

** "Aw, go fish," Corrine tuned the cutter to a small, focussed flame. "We haven't time for fancy stuff. It's only an hour till class at Acme Loo lets out for the day - fifteen minutes later that Bunny could be here. He'll know someone's been in when he sees his Acme jacket missing anyhow."**

** "I'll keep lookout. Don't say I didn't warn you." With that Sapphire vanished into the bushes, her trusty binoculars in paw. **

** "In we go - so much for cheap Acme armoured housings." Corrine grinned, the wolf-girl concentrating on the hinges of the door control box. Ten seconds later there was a loud click and a grinding sound from the big slab door, as if a pair of foot-thick hardened steel bolts had rotated and withdrawn.**

** "Does that sound like two big steel locking bolts unbolting?" Sherri-Jo asked wonderingly.**

** "Dunno. We didn't do this in my old school," Corinne continued to play the cutter over the hinges. "Yeah! We're in!"**

** Whether or not it was a stray drop of molten metal that short-circuited the wiring inside, the results were spectacular. In the opening mechanism fresh Acme explosives blasted into hot gas - and the 490 tonne ex- Minuteman silo door slammed open with the force of a crashing express train! It was bad luck that Corinne and Sherri-Jo were working in the only clear space - the area the sliding door occupied half a second later. The two toons were squashed to paper-thin leaves and whirled away in the breeze - while the crushed gas cylinders of their cutter ruptured and ignited, sending a ball of fire billowing high into the clear skies above the gaping silo pit.**

** Sapphire emerged from the bushes, shaking her head sadly. "I told you so." She cautiously descended into the burrow, grabbed the bunny's treasured old Acme Toonsters sports jacket from its peg, and began to make tracks for Perfecto.**

* * *

**Far above, half a dozen Toon satellites' cameras bulged into goldfish bowls in well done Clampett Corneal Catastrophes. Their hardware "wild take" reflexes triggered at the sight of the Guaranteed Authentic Government Silo door slamming open and the plume of fire rising from it, and their radio yells of surprise echoed around the orbital bands. (In space, nobody can hear the screaming Avery fire-horn sound effect from your "take", however good it may be.)**

** MOLOT19 was already almost on its closest approach to Earth at its maximum speed, ready to swing past the planet at 23,000 miles an hour, and its camera was already locked on the very recognisable armoured hole in Acme Acres when saw it belch infra-red and heard the panic alarms from satellites all around confirming a launch. Fifty thousand orbits had it swung in its eternally vigilant watch, and at last here was the very thing it had been looking for. The 1200 Ferrotonne warhead section separated and fired its main engine to convert the near-miss of orbit into a straight plunge slamming through the atmosphere onto target - with just enough time to confirm all systems were firing, its ancient computer expired at last under the strain but with the knowledge of Duty Done. It never heard the other watching satellites sending the "Don't Panic" signal as nothing aggressive climbed out of the toony gravity well.**

** Fortunately or unfortunately, over the decades most of the fuel had leaked out into Space. Instead of ploughing straight into Acme Acres at three miles a second, MOLOT 19 clipped the atmosphere in a mostly unnoticed daytime fireball and hurtled off back into space, now on a decaying and highly unstable orbit. As the phrase went, it would be back.**

* * *

**Having delivered the prized Acme Looniversity jacket to the seniors as a sporting trophy, Sapphire rejoined Clique One after class and they retired to her room. "Well, now. The end of our first week - and it looks as if we're still here."**

** "I saw some folk didn't do so well," Felicia grinned. "Three of the boys came back frazzled to a crisp and trailing ash … it looked as if they'd spent the afternoon wrestling with a high-voltage power line."**

** "To the victors the spoils," Sapphire raised a glass of grape juice. "And may the losers get - spoiled. Cheers!" She relaxed. The "Do Not Disturb" sign was on the door, though it was unlocked - in theory any senior could come barging in on a hazing raid. Two had the previous day, protected with insulated gloves after their previous attempt - to discover the loosened floor tiles and the punji sticks beneath. Evidently brain power was not everything at Perfecto.**

** "It's definitely something I can get used to." Irma relaxed on the couch, preening her feathers. She looked on with interest at the books on the rodent's bedside table. Two of them were on Toon Physics, not a course that Perfecto offered - and oddly enough, they were elementary-school texts, full of such basic facts that any toon Sapphire's age should have already known from daily experience if nothing else. Half a dozen bookmarks showed that Sapphire was studying them hard.**

** "It's the place to be, all right," Felicia confirmed. "New money, old traditions. Two hundred and twenty years of tradition."**

** "Was there anyone building Universities around this part of the country back then?" Sapphire wondered aloud.**

** "Miss Hazel started off on the East Coast, but living in Salem was a bit of a trial to her," Felicia nodded towards the window, where the statue of the founder stood proudly outside. "Perfecto properly started off in my home town BosToon - its traditions were laid down by its first "speaker", Helmuth the Bostonian. He moved it to Acme Acres in the great Toon Land Grab of 1933."**

** Just at that moment all three felt their newly issued official Perfecto T-pads vibrate as a message arrived. Perfecto students enjoyed all the latest and greatest control equipment, and control went both ways.**

** "Well." Felicia's ears went right up, as she read her internal Perfecto T-mail. "We're all invited to meet our "elders and betters" - and yes, that's just what it says. Tonight, and we've hall and upper section Passes arranged."**

** "Better dress in our best, and polish the fur till it shines. We'll get to see what it's like, the room at the top." Sapphire looked at her own invite with interest. "There's a line in that old John Lennon song - '**_**but first you must learn how to smile as you kill, if you want to be like the folks on the hill.**_**' I wonder what the folks on our hill want with little us."**

**The Seniors area of Perfecto Prep made the admittedly luxurious first-year area look like a run-down YMCA. Felicia, Irma and Sapphire showed their passes and were escorted through the complex of elegant rooms, marvelling at the décor and the facilities.**

** "Hot pools, full immersion fur and feather driers … they have the lot," Irma whispered, following the uniformed butler. "How do we get all this? Without waiting five years?"**

** "I think it usually involves signing an unbreakable pact in your own blood." Sapphire seemed quite cheerful at the prospect. "Oh well, if the deal's worth it, it's worth it."**

* * *

** In the senior lounge, half a dozen toons were relaxing on fine leather couches, looking up in mild interest as Clique One were escorted in. None of them rose to greet the arrivals.**

** "Ah, there you are." Roderick Rat waved dismissively. "Yes. We thought we'd bring you over and have a closer look. We've been following your progress."**

** "It's a tradition at Perfecto." Margot Mallard nodded. "Promising Juniors are given the chance to run a few little errands for us from time to time. As long as they stay - promising, that is."**

** "Oh, I'll bet," Irma grinned fiercely. "And what do we get?"**

** "Sharp, and cuts straight to the point. I like her." Margot turned to Danforth, who smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. "You receive - information, advice, a measure of protection - nothing that costs us anything of course, but I think you'll find it - beyond price."**

** "Mother always told me not to sign any cheques with no price on them," Sapphire mused. "But the rest of the idea sounds agreeable - in principle." She pulled out a sheaf of papers. "I expected something like this. So I brought my own contract with me."**

** "Ooh, Roddy, she IS quite good," Rhubella cast an appraising glance at the paper. "We're not signing anything. Nice try, though. But - the offer's still there."**

** Sapphire looked around at the rest of Clique One, who nodded assent. "We'll take it."**

** The seniors stood up, and called for drinks all round. "Here's to a promising beginning," Margot Mallard accepted an elegantly fluted glass from a servant and raised it. "Champagne, of course,"**

** Sapphire looked at the tray. "At home, I'd take you up on the offer - I'm over 18, that's old enough there. But I know in this state you need to be over 21."**

** "Indeed. But if I were to tell you we're legally not in this state, despite appearances?" Margot sipped appreciatively.**

** "Then - if that's true … there's nothing listed on the map, so the only way is … this is an Embassy of some kind?" Sapphire's finely furred tail twitched.**

** "Smart girl!" Rhubella looked at her approvingly. "We have a deal with the Eastern Molvanian government. We're officially on their sovereign territory, and their laws apply."**

** "One of our ex-students was from there and joined their Diplomatic corps - after graduating he came to a mutually profitable agreement with Perfecto. It's very useful at times." Roderick raised his glass. The customised Portable Holes linking the Embassy with its European homeland could carry far more than the standard diplomatic bag. "You're sure you won't join us in a glass?"**

** Sapphire beamed. "I would - if I was sure it was only champagne in it. There's so many interesting chemical tricks you can play." Her tail twitched. "I'd have the glass you're drinking from, though."**

** Roderick and Rhubella exchanged significant glances. Roderick passed Sapphire his own half-empty glass, and filled himself a fresh one. "Well, then. Here's to our newest students - long may you uphold the proud traditions of Perfecto Prep."**

End Chapter Two


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**Weekends at Perfecto Prep were generally quiet, as the students took advantage to sleep late and order breakfast in bed. Felicia woke around eight, stretching luxuriously in the comfortable sheets. She raised an eyebrow at the new addition to her room. "I didn't ask for a statue to be delivered," she mused as she dodged around it to open the door. "Ugly thing it is, too."**

** From the corridor, Sapphire waved a cheery good morning. "I see they had another go last night," she commented. "Recognise her? Cherri-Jo, she's Sherry-Jo's older sister. Evidently doesn't have much imagination. Must run in the family, to judge by those names."**

** Felicia's eyes wide, the feline grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Oh! They tried it on again? I didn't wake up this time. What was in that big flask you loaded the booby traps with last night?"**

** "Liquid nitrogen. Nice and quiet." The rodent pulled out a hefty brass knuckleduster and tapped the "statue" on its nose - the super-chilled toon smashed into a hundred pieces before reassembling into a live canine and stalking off with a disgusted look. "Interesting! She must have been stuck like that for hours despite warming to room temperature. Just like the Toon Physics book says - they're frozen in form till something happens to re-set them." She looked speculatively out of the window at the statue of Perfecto's founder, Miss Hazel. Nobody had seen her around in awhile, by all accounts.**

** Felicia frowned. "You need to read a book to know that? Just where are you from? English toons would know that, everybody does." **

** Sapphire cocked her head to one side. "Well, now. That's a question. It wouldn't help much to show you on a map - Acme Acres doesn't show on the maps I was brought up with. And on my maps you'd have a few surprises, I think" She winked. "We all have our little secrets, eh?"**

** "And why to you need to carry that around with you?" Felicia looked at the knuckleduster Sapphire was polishing "Mallets don't weigh anything when you're not using them."**

** "It's a family heirloom - my great-grandmother used it a lot in school back in the 1930's." Sapphire returned the hefty lump of metal to her pocket. Unlike other toons, her body pockets were all part of her clothing, and looked somewhat clumsy as they bulged visibly. "You might say I'm severely allergic to mallets. Plummeting anvils, safes and grand pianos too."**

** Felicia snickered. "Good thing you came here and not to Acme Loo! You'd get smacked with them twice a day, in some of their classes."**

** Sapphire winced. "So I've heard. I think at Acme… I'd have a very short career."**

* * *

**Just four miles to the West and four hours later, a five-star restaurant was opening for lunch. **

** "Ah, the veritable Weenie-Burger!" Babs Bunny strolled in through the familiar doors. "Five stars - well, they're black holes really but they used to be stars. Some say the food here used to be ingredients."**

** Beside her, the ears of a white and purple skunkette drooped. "Le sigh. Anothair Summer Vacation eet is ovair - and Fifi she is still alone. Ze Summertime romances, zey went "phut" every one. Eet was ze last Summer Vacation, too. From ze Looniversity we weel nevair have anothair." Her nose twitched. "And after the cuisine so wonderful of la belle France, back to ze fast-food."**

** "Feef - it's not fast-food. With the service you get here it can take ages." Babs's ears went up in delight as she looked around the other diners and spotted a familiar beak; a mostly white loon with golden head-feathers. "Shirley! We're back!"**

** "Like, coolest," Shirley McLoon waved happily over her Organic Tofu wrap, made from humanely harvested soy beans. "I had the most mondo harmonious holiday, in the Bermuda Triangle. The vibes were just so totally totally Other." She levitated, floating six inches above the seat; with her pristine white tail-feathers this was generally a good move given the standard of cleaning at the Weenie Burger bar. "So it's, like, back for one more spin on the karmic wheel at Acme, 'kay?" **

** "'Kay!" The bunny and Skunkette chorused, giggling. The three friends chatted happily for half an hour, eager to catch up on their holiday adventures. **

** Suddenly Babs' long ears went up. "Incoming! Incoming! I spy with my adorable eye … something beginning with "P"".**

** Fifi followed her gaze. Ordering a weenie-burger at the counter was a friendly-looking rodent, whose bright pink fur was nothing out of the ordinary in the crowd of assorted toons. Her black and white jacket with the proud but discreetly embroidered "P" above the heart proclaimed her as a Perfecto Prep student. Oddly enough, she wore a backpack though it was not a school day. "Mon Dieu! Eet ees a leetle early for ze challenges - we are not even in class till Monday!"**

** "Perfecto always like begin school term a week earlier, or some junk," Shirley noted. "My aura could feel the bad vibes starting days ago - a cosmic jackhammer opening up full blast half a block away."**

** Babs grinned. "Well, we'll let them make the first moves." She mentally checked her ready rack of mallets, custard pies and the other items she had moved to Hammerspace where they would take up no conventional weight or bulk.**

** Surprisingly, the rodent gave them a friendly smile and a nod, and sat down at the table next to them. **

** Babs looked on with glee, awaiting the usual "wild take" reaction of someone sampling their first Weenie-Burger - but there was little more than a raised eyebrow and a more cautious chewing from the rodent. "Must have "**_**cast-iron stomach**_**" as her toon shtick, like Dizzy Devil," she whispered, intrigued. **

** Fifi nodded. She shrugged. "And she ees not yelling for the maitre d'hote, like ze usual Perfecto student. Not zat zhere is one 'ere…"**

** "Oh, well. When in Rome, do as the Romans, they say." Evidently the rodent had excellent hearing, whatever other talents her Toon ancestry must have provided. "Though in my experience over there it means "**_**drive like a maniac and use the horn instead of the brake**_**.""**

** Babs giggled. "A sense of humour! You must have been sent to the wrong place. You're sure you're a Perfectoid?"**

** "So far. They say practice makes perfect-o, and I just started this week." She accepted Babs' invite to move to their table. "Hello. I'm Sapphire Van Hoogstraaten. I'm new around here."**

** "You are another European, non?" Fifi's tail twitched in interest. "New around Acme Acres, or America, or …"**

** "Or." Sapphire winked. **

** Just then, another tray hit the table from another new arrival. A green mallard wearing a bulging white vest filled with pockets parked his feathered rump on the seat and looked around confidently. "Plucky Duck's the name, and stardom's the game!" He stuck out a feather-hand to shake - then recoiled in a "take" as he spotted Sapphire's uniform. "Ewww… somebody spilled a whole Perfectoid on the seat in here." He wiped his hand against his jacket as if to clean it.**

** "Cool it, Plucky, we're having a civilized conversation here, you know?" Shirley snapped. "Like, civilized?"**

** "This is Shirley McLoon - girl of my dreams and the most high-powered psychotic in town." Suddenly Plucky's eyes bulged. "Psychic! I meant psychic!"**

** Shirley's outline was wreathed in what looked like an electrical corona - she pointed her finger and with a blast of energy reduced Plucky to a pile of ash with a beak and pair of blinking eyes sitting on top. "I rest my case," the scorched beak moaned.**

** Sapphire looked on with interest as the duck reconstituted. **

** "This is Fifi LaFume, and I'm Babs Bunny." Babs grinned.**

** "Any relation to Buster Bunny?" Sapphire's big pink ears went right up.**

** Babs considered the issue. "Relation? Hmm. I'll have to think about that one."**

** Fifi and Shirley snickered. "Bustair is our friend, yes, and 'e will be arriving sometime." Fifi explained. "Why, you 'ave 'eard of 'im?"**

** "Oh, well. I've got something that belongs to him." Sapphire rummaged in her backpack and pulled out an Acme jacket, freshly ironed. "Somebody at Perfecto ordered this stolen. They didn't take very good care of it. I thought Mr. Bunny might want it back so I reacquired it."**

** Babs' ears went up. Her eyes narrowed as she examined the jacket carefully, checking for traces of fleas or itching-powder. **_**Beware**__**of Perfectoids bearing gifts**_**, was a saying that sprung to her caffeinated mind. "Buster's been missing this."**

** "And Miss McLoon? I believe somebody took your swimsuit bottom off the washing line." Sapphire handed over a neatly wrapped tissue-paper parcel. She looked at Shirley's current outfit, which comprised a salmon-pink sweater and head-feather ribbon. Evidently she was wondering why the waterfowl bothered with a swimsuit, considering what she left entirely feather-clad most of the time.**

** Shirley took the package cautiously. "Like, if you don't mind I'm washing this twice and checking it for curses or some junk before I wear it again." She looked hard at the rodent. "I totally don't get it - why is a Perfectoid doing all this for us? It's like you believe in karma, or something."**

** "Or something," Sapphire agreed. "One thing they haven't taught me there as yet is - how to keep all your options open. But then, I already knew that."**

** "She's from Perfecto, all right" Plucky grumbled. "She's sneaky enough."**

** "Oh, and I'm not?" Babs grinned, elbowing him in the short ribs while Fifi and Shirley giggled. Plucky scowled.**

** Sapphire finished her weenie-burger, and dabbed her muzzle clean with the paper napkin. In terms of taste and nutrition, the napkin was a close rival to the meal. "Well. It's been interesting meeting you all. I'm sure I'll have to face you later on in the line of duty - but I wanted to meet you socially first." She nodded respectfully. "I hope I've got this right - Babs Bunny, Fifi La Fume, Shirley McLoon and Yucky Muck."**

** "That's, PLUCKY Muck! I mean Plucky Duck!" The volatile mallard's temper snapped utterly and he did the unthinkable - yank a forty-pound mallet from Hammerspace and swing it at the girl toon. There was a triple gasp of horror from the Amazing Three.**

** But Sapphire was no longer there. With reflexes that would have caused any cat to applaud, she had sprung well clear as the mallet pounded the seat she had been sitting into the floor like a giant rivet. As Sapphire leaped back she swung her arms out with a double snapping sound - and her gloves, suddenly bulging like boxing gloves, slammed down and pounded the off-balance duck into a crater next to it.**

** "Whoa! That shtick works, girl!" Babs enthused, eyes wide. "I've heard of Hammertoes - but hammer hands ?"**

** "Mmmm?" Sapphire raised her arms, and her gloves deflated. Her jacket sleeves bulged slightly, and she pressed hidden buttons by the glove cuffs. "No - just four pounds of liquid "red mercury" metal and an inertia valve. A little something I put together in handicrafts class last year."**

** "You, like, worked for ACME products or some junk?" Shirley's eyebrow rose. "We've a classmate, Calamity Coyote, he'd like to see them. Because yours work. That's different."**

** "Acme? No - just a little something of my own." Sapphire frowned slightly. She opened her jacket. "I've built in Taser-proof metal mesh and Kevlar here, but if it's twenty kilo mallets and ten-tonne safes flying around in this neighbourhood - this armour won't help. Maybe I'd be better off saving the weight, wearing a silk shirt and just dodging."**

** The loon cracked her knuckles, looking down at the slowly reconstituting mallard on the floor. "I like totally promise, you won't have to worry any more about mallets from THIS direction. Someone's about to get a little late Summer School in manners. How to treat a lady 101, remedial." Her powder-blue aura separated, and began to charge up. "Plucky - you're coming back next time as a rutabaga, you know. But first …"**

** From outside, various passers-by wondered at the brilliant light show apparently advertising the normally low-key Weenie Burger restaurant. Takings were good that evening as curious customers scented an unfamiliar appetising aroma wafting through its doors and came in to investigate - though scan the menu as they might, nobody could work out how to order the crispy roast duck.**

* * *

**Back in Perfecto, the senior year were far more interested in comedy than most of their Acme rivals suspected. Of course, this was a more sophisticated form - and something the performers appreciated less than the audience.**

** "So," Roderick Rat drawled, looking down at the dishevelled second-years in the interview pit below. "Tell me again how you managed to fail one simple little assignment three times in a row. We all want to hear you." He nodded as Margot Mallard and Danforth Drake sat down next to him; Rhubella was already sitting snugly pressed against him, her tail entwined with his.**

** "Yes, Cherri-Jo, do tell us." Rhubella stroked her cheek-ruffs, looking down at the mastiff. "You do know that hazing younger students is an important social duty - and so is following requests from your elders and betters. You're a second-year now, you certainly should know." **

** "It's that sneaky mouse - or rat - or whatever she is." Cherri-Jo snarled. "I've got an Acme Trap detector - it doesn't show up those tricks she's got." It was an open secret that all ACME products carried identifying chips, so a simple scanner could spot from a distance the classic safe or anvil balanced above a door.**

** "Then you'll have to use your wits instead of your hardware. Anyway, what are you doing buying from ACME? Think you're at the Looniversity - or want to be?" Rodney raised an eyebrow.**

** "Oh, don't be so hard on the girl." Rhubella's expression did not match her words. She dipped an ear. "Cherri-Jo living by her wits? She can't open the store if she hasn't got the stock."**

** Margot looked down her beak at the canine. "Make Sapphire wish she'd never been born, by this time next week - or you are out of the Omega sorority. And she'll take your place."**

** "But she's one of yours - everyone knows those three are under your wing," Cherri-Jo protested.**

** "Yes." Margot tossed back her long mane of purple head-feathers. "As long as she stays - promising. Unfair? Do remember where you are. Now get busy."**

** As the dejected toon slunk out with her tail between her legs, Rhubella raised an eyebrow. "You've got something special planned, Margot?"**

** The mallard cast her an amused glance. "We've not had anyone thrown out yet this term. I think it's time to see just how dim that mutt really is."**

** "Besides," Danforth put in languidly "from that family we've got Sherri-Jo, Cherri-Jo, Brandi-Jo and Berry-Jo already in Perfecto. That's - more than enough. What have you in mind?"**

** Margot pressed her beak close to Danforth's ear-hole and whispered for a minute. The drake's eyebrows went right up.**

** "That's the most vicious thing I ever heard of," he said admiringly. "Painful, humiliating, and highly amusing."**

** Margot smirked. She nodded to Roderick and Rhubella. "I'll keep it as a surprise. Just you keep an eye on that mutt's future. But - don't blink."**

* * *

**As evening fell, Sapphire returned from her exploration of Acme Acres. Her notebook bulged and her camera was full of encrypted photographs of various interesting sights. Few of them would feature in the local tourist board's handouts.**

** "Ah, Perfecto." She looked up at her new school and home. "Life here should be interesting."**

** Inside, she noticed some of her year clustered round one of the yard-wide display screens - unlike Acme Loo, they did not make announcements by tacking paper posters to a cork noticeboard any more. **

** "What's up?" She asked Eva Frundsberg.**

** "A dance - the first dance of term is next week." The duck raised her bill haughtily. "I don't know if I shall attend. I only dance to Apocalyptic Techstep."**

** "And I only attend waltzes. Then sideways slam-dance the night away." Corinne reached into Hammerspace and pulled out a paw-full of DVDs.**

** "**_**Slam-dance Summer, Twist and Slam-dance, Slam-dance party, Everybody Slam-dance**_**!" Sapphire scanned the titles. "I think I see a trend here. Oh well, I'm sure it's good aerobics and drums up trade for the medics."**

** "And what exclusive trends do you enjoy?" Eva asked. "Raga-Rock? Choral thrash? Death boogie-woogie?"**

** Sapphire's tail swished. "When it comes to it, there's nothing like the sound of Israeli yodel bands. Actually I think the one true piece of music is Esther and Abi Ofarin's "**_**Cinderella Rockafella**_**" from 1968. Compared with that all else is mere commentary."**

** She paused just long enough to see half a dozen toons' jaws hit the floor in a Wild Take that would have earned points at Acme Loo. Whistling happily, Sapphire skirted the lake of lost Sanity Points and skipped off back to her room for a well-earned rest.**

End Chapter Three


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"**Eastern Molvania," Irma Falco read from the notebooks "Owns half of the territory of Perfecto Prep as an Embassy, despite having no real diplomatic interests on this side of the planet. No matter what happens, it remains sovereign territory and subject only to Eastern Molvanian law. However - there is no point in researching these laws as the Molvanians have shown no interest in enforcing them here, caring not a bent zloty for foreign citizens." She put the notes down. "Basically - we could all vanish up our own inkwells and they wouldn't care two beans."**

** "It's useful your sister gave you her notes, after she graduated." Felicia commented. Clique One was in session in Sapphire's room, its official headquarters. All the first-year rooms were the same size, though already many of their occupants had started to make their own personal touches. Sapphire's collection of elementary texts on Toon Physics was growing all the time, and across the hallway a highly gothic custard-yellow bunny had redecorated with spiked black leather wallpaper.**

** Irma snorted. "Gave me? Wake up and smell the cat food, Felicia. She's a Perfecto Graduate. These notebooks cost me two hundred dollars apiece, no family discounts. Where do you think you are?"**

** "Does it say where in the building the border runs?" Felicia looked over a feathered shoulder. "Then I could tell you - I know we're not in Kansas any more - and quite possibly we're in Eastern Europe."**

* * *

**Down in the sub-basement, the reason for the strange setup at Perfecto could be found - by anyone with the keys and permissions to enter. There was a metal orange cage protecting what looked like the top of a mine shaft - but as with many things, appearances were deceptive. That hole connected to the far side of the planet; getting a matched pair of the usually random destination One-Way Holes set up had been a major coup ten years ago. **

** "Toon holes," Danforth Drake mused, looking on as one of the hulking "Sports Scholars" pushed a laden trolley towards the open void. "Too good to waste on mere comedy. People with the right connections can find examples that also have the right - connections."**

** As he and Margot watched, the trolley was shoved over the edge - and somewhere in Eastern Molvania an instant later received another duty-free consignment of hi-fi and luxury goods. The gate clanged shut, and the "cage" reset to grab hold of anything that would be briefly falling up when sent through the hole in the other direction, before it reversed course and fell back.**

** "There's not much they've got that we want - until cabbage soup becomes the Next Big Thing in gourmet cuisine," Margot nodded "but as it happens - it's a perfect setup. I know there's a few things they're so glad to get rid of - they'll give it away almost for free."**

* * *

**On a deserted headland twenty miles away (and normally downwind) from the capital of Eastern Molvania, there was a fine example of an anti-factory. The building was an addition to the main power station; its ventilation was ducted to send all the air leaving the building through the main furnace intakes for very good reasons.**

** They've found more of these? A toon, anonymous in a heavy rubber sealed suit, looked on in horror as a new consignment arrived at the loading bay. Doors closed and sealed airtight, and he watched the pressure gage drop proving the building was secure. Any air would be leaking into the facility, not out of it.**

** These have spent twenty years dumped at the bottom of a mineshaft, after we denied ever having them. His equally suited comrade gestured towards the once sleek shapes on the trolley; they were dented and speckled with corrosion. Better get processing this batch - they're not leaking yet, but today could be the day.**

** On a stainless steel trolley were ten rocket warheads, older than the toons who were looking at them shudderingly through thick quartz glass face plates. Each contained sixteen breakable flasks holding ten litres apiece of a volatile cocktail of solvents suspended in a heavy oil that would slow its evaporation and render any area touched by the liquid droplets lethally dangerous for days or weeks depending on the weather. They were destined to be taken to the furnace inlet and punctured by remote control, their contents burning harmlessly and in fact helping to keep the lights burning and joy buzzers of the capital city charged.**

** Almost at the end of the shift, the telephone rang. There's an order for what? Someone wants an empty case of one of these? Just for a joke? Yes, Sir. I'll arrange it. The suited toon put the phone down, and considered the matter.**

_**Nobody's really paying that much for an old tin can**_**, he decided - **_**that'd keep us all in cabbage soup and black bread for a week!**_** Survival in Eastern Molvania had for decades been an exercise in reading between the lines. **_**Yes, on paper they said they want an empty shell … they have to cover themselves. But I know what they really want. Well, who cares? It's the far side of the world from here after all…**_

** He delicately picked up the last olive-green container from the disposal line and put it in a double airtight bag before crossing it off as destroyed on the checklist. This one was less corroded than most - next to the fuze was still visible a black big-eyed toony skull symbol and a code-word in faded Cyrillic script.**

_**T-SMERT.**_** Toon killer.**

* * *

**Back in Acme Acres it was a lazy Sunday morning. If Perfecto toons slept late at the weekend that went double on Sundays; Felicia awoke, stretched and yawned, looking out over the well-manicured lawns and gardens. Contrary to popular opinion there was not always a thunderstorm raging over the grounds.**

** Felicia cautiously looked out of her window then opened it, breathing in the cool Autumn air, watching the sunlight play across the wet ivy and the loops of sharp-edged steel wire outside her window.**

** "I didn't notice that before," she mused as she opened her corridor door.**

** "An idea of mine, last night," Sapphire greeted her in passing. "They've tried three times to come in through our doors - I thought they'd try something else, and they did. Anyone caught in yours? I got a brace of second-years in mine."**

** Felicia craned her neck out of the window to look over the discreetly coiled wires that only showed up in the sunlight; at night they would have looked like part of the ivy. "Nobody got this far."**

** "Oh well. They'd have had to get past me from the nearest corridor window. I'd tell you what the wires do when they're triggered but it's all much too horrible." Sapphire paused, pulled out a calculator and tapped into it awhile. "By a factor of about 2.4, I think." She turned, her eyes wide. "Now I know it's true about the … bits of a toon reassembling themselves!"**

** Felicia scratched her head-fur, puzzled. "Well, yes. Of course it is." She looked at Sapphire curiously. "Where did you go to school?"**

** "Oh - I'm not sure the name would mean anything to you here. It was somewhere they - nurture the hardier and thornier breeds of delicate English Roses like little me."**

** Eva Frundsberg stopped in the corridor, and gave a sharp blast of a laugh. "English Rose? Something with sharp, curare dripping thorns, sure enough."**

** "Oooh - Curare works on toons?" Sapphire made a note in her T-pad. "That's interesting. At school they taught us the theory of all sorts of lethal traps - I've never really built one, over there it's often more legal trouble than they're worth."**

** The duck looked at her in amusement. "Heh. Just so as you know, I've teamed up with three avian girls, we're now Team High Ground. We've got senior-year patrons too - Luanne Lecroy and Hans Haflinger."**

** "We know about them," Sapphire studied a sharpened finger-claw. "Herr Von Haflinger usually recruits the "sports scholars" - toons with bigger bicep than IQ measurements. I suppose Miss Lecroy is about his type. The strength of a bridge girder and the brains to match, I've heard." She gave the duck a friendly smile. "I'm so pleased you found suitable supporters."**

** Eva's biologically hard-to-explain teeth showed in a sneer. "Laugh while you can, hairball. Team High Ground will be right over you like a cirrus cloud soon enough." With that she haughtily swept off.**

** "And so it is… a few are shepherds and the rest are sheep..." Sapphire mused. "They used to say if you want to get ahead, get a hat. If I want to keep a head I'll need a steel helmet. Quite a challenging piece of shopping to find one in a chic style."**

** Felicia frowned. "What's your problem with safes and anvils? I know it hurts - but when you get squashed 2-D you just blow on your thumb and re-inflate."**

** "You would. Not me." Sapphire looked around cautiously. "The first ten-tonne safe that lands on me will be the last. The last one I'll have to worry about."**

** "I can see why you didn't join the Acme Loo-sers," Felicia winced. "A film class in their School of Hard Knocks would be a pretty short course. What are you studying here?"**

** Sapphire contemplated. "I've not decided which branch of my family trade I'll specialise in. Some of us are lawyers, others - generate custom for them."**

** "Like being film stars, suing everybody?" Felicia's tail twitched in curiosity.**

** "Something like that. My Uncle made international TV when one of his jobs went just a little bit wrong," Sapphire laughed, winking. "The rest of us try not to get too famous like that."**

** Just then there was the sound of heavy pounding from the direction of the common-room along the corridor. Sapphire's ears went up. "Sounds like what my old school called Combat Aerobics," she commented, slipping her knuckleduster out of her pocket. "Let's take a look. Maybe we can make book on it."**

**In the first-year common-room, not everyone was having a relaxing Sunday morning – depending of course how they usually took their relaxation. A huge canine that Felicia vaguely recalled enjoyed the name of Joey-Bob (as opposed to his matching brother Bobby-Joe) was bellowing with rage and frustration as he tried again to land a punch on the vulture with the metal hand she had noticed on the first day. Half a dozen toons including Irma Falco were watching with interest.**

** Irma waved her fellow Clique One members to join her on the sofa. "Viktor only said Joey-Bob's game, American Football, was a game for meat-heads who needn't waste money on helmets – they've nothing to damage in there. Joey-Bob's a Sports Scholar, and disagreed."**

** "Mmm. I can see the cut and thrust of his intellectual argument," Sapphire nodded.**

** "I tire of this." Viktor sidestepped a clumsy rush that would have felled a tree had it connected. "And now …" he stepped back, his steel hand making a strange electronic "**_**Bi-bi-bi-bi-bippppp**_**" sound as it powered up.**

** As Joey-Bob squared up to concentrate on the new threat, Viktor's other hand swung in to connect crashingly to the point of the canine's jaw – there was a thunderous crash as Joey-Bob hit the carpet, out cold.**

** "Did you see that sucker-punch?" Irma hissed excitedly. Her tail-feathers spread wide at the sight. "Oh, yes!"**

** "Rather like shooting fish in a barrel. Efficient, I grant you," Sapphire looked on mildly interested as Viktor used his charged power-fist to punch two holes in the wall at ankle height next to the fallen "Sports Scholar" – he pushed Joey-Bob's arms through the holes then vanished next door for a minute.**

** Irma put her head round to see what he was doing. She returned a few seconds later, grinning. "Never mind handcuffs. He crazy-glued that oaf's paws together on the far side! How about that?"**

** Felicia winced. "That's going to cost a bit in room damages. Two holes in the brickwork. And maybe taking the wall down to get him out."**

** "Oh, yes." Sapphire mused, her fine tail swishing. "It's in the small print in the Perfecto rules. The loser of any fight always pays. Even if they'd airburst a tonne of Dip upwind and wiped half Perfecto off the map."**

** Every toon in hearing range winced as if Sapphire had touched a raw nerve.**

** "Sapphire," Irma hissed "we do not even … talk about that stuff. It doesn't even exist any more. Every nation signed a treaty to destroy all their stocks, including the recipe."**

** The pink toon rodent raised an eyebrow. "I hadn't noticed that course on our timetable here. Is it Acme Looniversity that runs courses in – how to put the genie back into the bottle?"**

* * *

**A few miles West at Acme Acres, all eyes were on the clocks and calendar as the final hours of their holiday slipped away. At Shirley McLoon's house she had invited over Babs, Fifi and Mary Melody for the evening. Their Looniversity clothes and bags were packed ready for the next day.**

** "Like, it's a harmonious time to check out the stars and cosmic flows, see what the new year holds for us all," Shirley enthused, setting out her astrological charts. "Our last year at Acme Loo, fer sure!"**

** "Le sigh." Fifi's tail drooped as she recalled her lonely Summer. "Your prediction was zo right for moi – Virgo she ees still in ze ascendant. Three skunk-hunks I chased zis 'oliday, but "**_**nil points, Fifi**_**," Le sigh, encore."**

** Shirley looked on in sympathy. "If I could read you Mr. Right's phone number in the stars, Feef, I'd do it for you. But the stars don't work that way."**

** The loon laid out her astrological charts, not limited to the classical planets but including twenty of the larger asteroids and as many obscure objects in the cold dark beyond Pluto.**

** "I've always believed we make our own luck," Mary Melody ventured. "The only thing planets move is along their orbits." She was keen on astronomy rather than astrology, and the only disasters from the heavens she believed in were asteroid or comet-shaped.**

** "There's more things in heaven and earth than, like, Newton or Einstein put in their philosophies," Shirley replied while calculating the astrological conjunction of Pluto, Clara_Cluck and Horace_Horsecollar out in the far darkness. Suddenly the loon's feathers bristled as if she had clutched a live wire.**

** "What's up, Shirley?" Babs looked up from where she was sneaking a handful of sugar and caffeine tablets into the herbal tea. "The Space Station getting in the way of Venus again?"**

** Shirley sat back, breathing heavily and her eyes wide in shock. "It's not the horoscope, Babs. I just had a flash of mondo bad vibes, you know? Like something totally evil just showed up in the neighbourhood."**

** "Maybe the teachers have called in all Elmyra's relatives from round the world and made them class monitors this term?" Babs suggested.**

** Shirley shook her head. "If I wasn't so centred I'd be like, guano-splattering scared. Something really, really bad is in town."**

* * *

**In the cellars of Perfecto, the cargo cage clicked into position and a bell rang to signal an arrival via portable hole from Eastern Molvania.**

** "Well, here's the stage prop for our little drama." Margot Mallard hefted the rusting green metal container, surprised it was so heavy. "If this was a live one – anyone caught with it …" She shook her head in mock sorrow. "Talk about throwing the book at them - they'd need to write some extra books!"**

** "I can see that," Danforth agreed cautiously. "Even Cherri-Jo would know that. She's not without a certain vegetable cunning. Why would she be dumb enough to get mixed up in something like that?"**

** Margot's purple head feathers were tossed back, as she cast him a look from under half-closed eyelids. "I have a plan. Just you watch. If she's not pretty soon begging to get her paws on this – you can pluck this duckling bald and call me oven-ready!"**

End Chapter Four


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

"**Ah, Perfecto Prep. As fine as it gets." Roderick and Rhubella Rat (no relation) strolled up towards the unhallowed halls, dressed in their sober best. It was almost Sunday lunchtime, and many of the senior year were returning from Church. Networking with powerful social groups was generally profitable in the long run, and attending Church was an economical way to meet high ranking conservative members of the Country Club set. "Another whole year to refine our skills! And then the big wide world."**

** Rhubella smiled. "Some people say it's like going from being a big fish in a little pond to a little fish in a big pond. I prefer thinking of - if we're going to be a little fish, then piranhas start small too. And we can choose what bathing beach we launch at - or is that lunch at?"**

** Roderick laughed in ironic delight. "Rhubella. You have such a way with words."**

** "And you have such a way with people." Rhubella's tail swished. "True - they rarely appreciate it. But you do get things done."**

** Roderick noticed some familiar first-years crossing the hall towards the dining room. "And even better, other toons get things done for me. Such as Clique One. I like that name."**

** "Are you going to use them on Professor Stanley's project?" Rhubella asked curiously. "It's asking a lot of first-years."**

** Roderick snickered. "Let's say we'll use them to test the waters. If there's sharks or mines in those waters - well, better they find out than the second-year team I've got standing by." He did not have to point out that with an extra year of patronage invested in them the second-years were more valuable. Perfecto Seniors knew this. **

** Roderick put on a broad and friendly smile, as he waved to Clique One. "Sapphire. Irma. Felicia. Good to meet you! I'm surprised we didn't see you in Church."**

** Sapphire's big ears went up. "I'd love to attend one. If only I could find one around here that supports my faith."**

** "What are you?" Rhubella asked, recalling the interesting blanks on her fellow rodent's Perfecto application form.**

** "I was brought up very strict Southern Recidivist." Sapphire inclined her muzzle reverently. "The faith of my Ancestors. Amongst other religious duties, I must tell one believed lie and one disbelieved truth every day."**

** Rhubella's jaw twitched with the ghost of a genuine smile. "Which one is that statement? The truth or the lie?"**

** "That is one of the Holy Mysteries," Sapphire replied smoothly. "But still. What do you want from us today? And what are you offering?"**

** Roderick chuckled. "You're right, Rhubella - she's almost quite promising, for a first-year. We've got a mission for you, should you choose to accept it. I've heard you've already come into - social contact with the Acme Loo-sers."**

** "**_**Know your enemy. Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted**_**." Sapphire quoted. "Besides, the cuisine at Weenie Burger has to be tasted to be believed."**

** Felicia blinked. "I was told it was awful."**

** Irma's beak clicked in derision. "Read between the lines, hairball! It is!"**

** Roderick looked on, appraisingly. "I'm prepared to give you the chance to shine - even in the eyes of our dear Tutors. If you accept the mission - and succeed, of course - let's say it'll raise your standing around here quite considerably."**

** "From lowly pondweed to slightly taller pondweed." Felicia said flatly.**

** Roderick and Rhubella exchanged knowing glances. "Just so," Roderick said smoothly. "But that is the offer on the table. Do you accept?"**

** Sapphire looked around, seeing two answering nods. "Just so," she echoed. "It's a secret mission, no doubt. And if we're caught, you of course will acknowledge we're acting under your official orders and our Tutors will move Toon Heaven and Earth to get us out of trouble?"**

** Roderick's eyes gave a flash of annoyance - he opened his mouth to speak - then looked at the innocent, guileless expression of the pink rodent. Suddenly he burst into gales of laughter. "You almost had me going there for a second," he gasped. "Oh yes, Rhubella, I think they'll do. I think they'll do very well indeed."**

** "Do what?" Felicia asked, confused.**

** But it was Sapphire who answered. "That too, is no doubt Top Secret. But we'll find out in good time." She paused. "Which in everything like this, is always when it's far, far too late."**

**The five strode into the Dining Hall, the rat Seniors naturally pushing in front and stalking off to sit at the tables for their Eta Pi associates, the respective dining fraternity and sorority. Clique One were thrust back into the unsorted ranks of the junior year.**

** Irma Falco spotted Viktor, the aloof and coldly handsome vulture sitting down and reaching for the menu. "I know where I'm sitting," she murmured to Sapphire and Felicia, "I'll see you later."**

** "A nice couple," Sapphire mused. "Do you know, his uncle the Ubercount von Vultur used to star in films along with our tutor****Miss Hatta Mari? That was back in Europe, in World War Two. Handsome fellow too in his way, monocle and everything - very cultured, looked good in the uniform. But unlike her, he never jumped ship."**

** "Not very Perfecto of him." Felicia acknowledged. There was no specific course for such on the timetable she had seen, but a Perfecto student was expected to know to the nearest molecule which side of her bread was best buttered – and to flip the side when the time was right. "They never show those films any more. What happened to him and all the other toons on his side?"**

** "Nobody knows, officially. It wasn't in any records I could access, either at home or … over here. Of course you can't kill a Toon very easily. Dip was invented in the war sure enough, but wasn't in military production till everything was almost over." Sapphire ignored the horrified reaction around her to that unnameable substance. "I've heard various stories. Some say they were banished, their Leader and his "black knights" frozen in a rune-sealed glacier cave in Greenland till Europe calls to them again and the sleepers shall awaken." She winked. "I've also heard they were sealed in concrete and dropped in the deepest part of the Atlantic. Take your pick."**

** "I'd rather take the pick of this." Felicia looked at the menu hungrily. "Oysters or lobster for hors d'oevres. Grilled turbot or monkfish for entrée. They say the Perfecto chefs are the best in Acme Acres, and I can believe it."**

** "Mmm. A forty item cheeseboard with some rather rare treats. They've got Norwegian Gammel Ost and Getost, and some of that strictly illegal English Blue Vinnie… well, what do you know? They've even found some Venezuelan Beaver Cheese," Sapphire mused, scanning the menu. "No mousetrap cheddar around here." She sighed. "From what I hear of our poor relations at Acme, they have a toon sleuthing project every year; the perennial Case of The Mystery Meat. I suppose they buy the cases cheap that got lost in the back of the warehouse till the labels rotted off."**

** "Just why did you go down to Weenie Burger?" Felicia asked, her feline curiosity piqued. "I've heard the Acme Looniversity crowd are a very inferior sort. Handy to have as a sort of punching bag for our sports teams of course, but - not the kind of people you'd want to share a table with."**

** Sapphire smiled blandly. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear." She paused. "Even this. But our "Patron", Mr. Roderick Rat … he's the one who was team captain upholding Perfecto's two hundred year winning run up against the Looniversity three years ago. And lost it. Despite all the "refinements" our team made with the game. Impossible to hush that up, it was at the Acme Bowl with the crowds and cameras watching it all."**

** "Oooh. I'll bet that made him popular around here," Felicia snickered. "A school record that took two hundred years to make, and it got busted on his watch. I'm amazed he's still around. You'd think he'd have been sent on a "re-training" exercise involving pogo sticks and clearing minefields."**

** "Rodents are resilient. Believe me, I should know." Sapphire winked. "You don't think I'd have signed up with just anyone as patron? Unlike some." She dipped an ear towards the self-styled Team High Ground. "Those avian lightweights are putting their faith in seniors like Luanne Lecroy – by all accounts she's a heavyweight all right, mostly between the ears. Being able to burst a tennis ball with one squeeze isn't something I've ever thought really useful." **

** Felicia raised an eyebrow. "She can pop a tennis ball with her bare hand?"**

** Sapphire cast her a mouse's most innocent, winning expression. "I imagine that's where she broke it, yes. But who knows? Maybe Hans von Haflinger's a braver toon than anyone guesses."**

** "I see. You wanted to get in with the ones who beat our mentor. And maybe get an idea of how they did it. That's sensible." Felicia nodded appreciatively. **_**You don't want to hire the fighting toon with all those scars**_**, an old film quote flashed through her head - **_**you want to hire the toon who Gave him those scars**_**. **

**Felicia looked over the menu one more time then ordered mesquite-grilled turbot and a FoulPlay traded coffee mousse for dessert. On her radio that morning the Classic Hits show had been playing that old Beach Boys track, "**_**Be true to your school**_**." She smirked, thinking about it. Perfecto encouraged its students to always sell out to the highest bidder – while keeping their loyalty by at the same time making sure it always WAS the highest bidder. Professor Hatta Mari had taught them all a useful lesson in Ethics that should inspire her students into record-breakingly hostile takeover bids in the merry world of cut-throat international finance in years to come.**

** On the table opposite was a human toon, evidently another first-year, slim of figure with a sharp and finely chiselled nose and an extremely close-cropped style of silver-blonde head-fur. He was handsome in a sharp, somewhat cruel-looking fashion. Sapphire inclined her muzzle graciously to him. "Hello! You're Charles Van den Zot, aren't you? I've read everyone's dossier."**

** The human nodded curtly. "Naturally. And so have I. If your figure was as slim as your details, you'd be anorexic."**

** "Why not come over and… gather intelligence?" Sapphire winked. "Maybe we can trade. I take it you're not a sports scholar?"**

** Charles gave a brief harsh burst of laughter. "If I was – trading intelligence with anyone would be a very brief transaction." He dropped his voice, looking round at three of the hulking forms at another table. "Although I have my suspicions that one of them is concealing a brain. Quite competently, or he would not have got this far."**

** "**_**If I had a brain, I'd be dangerous for sure**_**", Sapphire mused, her fine-furred tail swishing. "I think that's the saying. Yes. I can imagine the combination of brains, brawn and – actually knowing you are so very, very replaceable – that could make other toons uncomfortable." She sat next to the toon human. "I've had some experience that way. You could say it comes with my family business."**

** Back on her original table, Felicia recalled another track that had been playing on the Classic Hits hour that morning – this one by The Clash. "**_**Her Daddy was a bank robber, but he never hurt nobody**_**", she sang softly "**_**He just loved to live that way, loved to steal your money…**_**"**

** Sapphire cocked her head to one side. Her paw flicked nonchalantly back and forth. "A bit of this, a bit of that."**

** Charles cast her an amused glance. "And just where was that?" He pulled out his T-pad. "I've traced everyone. I looked hard at you, when I noticed what I couldn't find. Your trail starts on the East Coast two months ago. Before that – you don't exist. You weren't born here, and you didn't officially enter the country. Officially you're not even here now. You paid your Perfecto fees in untraceable, unmarked twenty-four carat gold."**

** "Oooh… found out already. How tragic." Sapphire sat back at the table, scanning the menu. "I showed up here at your MiskaToonic University – to a given value of "here". We have one very like that in the same place on our maps, though it's spelt a little differently."**

** Charles nodded. "MiskaToonic specialise in subjects Toon Was Not Meant To Know. Their graduate students have keen rivalry in performing the most Utterly Forbidden Experiments."**

** "They must have a generous budget for capital letters," Felicia mused.**

** "Just so." Sapphire agreed. "They were surprised to see little me. They expected to get something coming through the gateway, but I think they expected something more exotic. At my end – well, we'll just say I was trying to get far, far away, for health reasons. My travel arrangements were a little exotic too."**

** "Health reasons? I can understand that." Charles favoured the rodent with a thin smile. "And as to exotic – I'm surprised nobody's noticed it. But I'm an artist and photographer, amongst other things." He made a rectangle with his index fingers and thumbs, and looked at Sapphire's face appraisingly through the frame. "Look around. We've toon humans, mammals and avians – whether we've beaks, or snouts, or whatever – everyone's proportions are just the same, from some angles. You – it's as if you were drawn on a different model entirely. Where you're from, I can believe it isn't on our maps. There's a Martian at Acme Looniversity, but even she is drawn on our proportions. You're from somewhere very different."**

** "She did say she'd never seen a Toon human before," Felicia volunteered.**

** Sapphire cast her a hard glance. "Thank you, loyal Clique One sister," her tail swished. "Ever considered a job as a Secret Agent? Or would Town Crier suit better?"**

** Felicia sniffed. "Mister Van der Zot just threw a lot more valuable information down about you than you ever have to us, loyal Clique One sister."**

** "Touché." Sapphire murmured. "You might be right, at that." She ordered the grilled abalone with gruyere cheese sauce, and looked wistfully at the wine list. Only Seniors were allowed wine at table, though looking round she noted none of them were sampling it at lunchtime. Presumably even for them, losing one's edge at Perfecto was like having a bleeding wound in a shark pool.**

** Charles cast a glance towards the table where Irma and Viktor were sitting. "Your comrade seems to be making a hit with Triple V," he noted.**

** "Triple V?" Felicia blinked.**

** "Viktor von Vultur, I assume," Sapphire followed the human's gaze towards where the vulture and Irma were talking conspiratorially. "I don't imagine he likes being called that."**

** "He quite loathes it," Charles sat back, appreciating a glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice. "Sapphire. Would you be interested in attending the dance this weekend with me? I'm sure you'll amuse me."**

** "And you'll be such an exotic… trophy date," Sapphire almost purred. "All that bare skin, whether or not it's visible – quite a hideous idea." She winked. "I'm just glad I inherited my furred tail from the mouse side of my family. My family alternated with marrying into rat and mice lines for four generations. I'm a pedigree mix, you could say."**

** "Shocking." Charles clicked glasses with Sapphire in a toast. "So – to the dance? I assume you can dance."**

** "Oh, yes," Sapphire's tail swished. "It's a date. I assume you can read a calendar."**

** On the table opposite, Eva Frundsberg snickered at the sight. The duck was sitting with the other three of Team High Ground, a jet-black raven and two haughty swans. "Ah. Sweet innocent romance, Perfecto style. Gruesome, isn't it?" She paused. "Just like in the movies – but then, I exclusively watch ZomBRomComs."**

** "Zombie Based Romantic Comedies, I take it?" Sapphire did not seem at all put out. "Well. It's only the end of the first week. Not only have I survived but I already have a patron, I have a clique, I have a date for the dance. Things are moving along nicely."**

* * *

**Across the room, a trio of second-years were not doing anything as obvious as looking in Sapphire's direction. Cherri-Jo was watching them from a camera linked to her T-pad, and listening from what looked like a crystal glass bowl on a waiter's cart on the far side of the room. The bowl was parabolic in section, wired for sound and pointed right on target; the liveried Perfecto staff earned their tips in many ways not written on their job descriptions.**

** "She's heading up to study after this. Serve her right." Cherri-Jo whispered to her clique, the mastiff cracking her knuckles. Some Perfecto cliques were of evenly matched types, "birds of a feather" whether they were avian or not. Others carefully picked a mix of brain and brawn; having a Sports Scholar in the team was sometimes an advantage.**

** "We'll get her then?" Janos, a hulking bull Sports Scholar, flicked an ear. He was in all the teams needing brute strength and not prejudiced against ignorance, despite the difficulty of getting an American Football helmet to fit his horns.**

** Cherri-Jo smirked. "I will. We'll use Room 102 – the one with the steep back service staircase. They're still decorating it." She snickered. "Dust sheets. Cargo strapping. Duct tape. Oh, the entertainment potential! I'll go up and ambush the rodent – you stop anyone following her. When you hear the struggle, T-mail Margot Mallard to come and watch. Got that?"**

** Janos nodded. "Got it." He sat back and pretended to read the comics pages, his lips moving visibly. A few minutes later he noticed Sapphire make her farewells and head up towards the accommodation wing. It was amazing the way plans came together.**

* * *

**Ten minutes later, Margot Mallard's eyebrow rose in surprise as she looked at the message on her T-pad. She was sitting on Danforth's lap in the senior common room – she was quite aware it was a somewhat painful arrangement for the drake, as she was a good deal bigger and heavier than him.**

** "Well, now. This should be interesting." She showed Danforth the message. "Cherri-Jo tells us she's made good. Got Miss mixed rodent nicely rat-trapped, she says."**

** "I hoped for more from the Hoogstraaten girl," Danforth complained. "Oh well, Cherri-Jo is a second-year after all. And anyone can have dumb luck once in awhile." He sighed with relief, his bones and construction lines unbending as Margot slid off him and straightened her tail-feathers. "Room 102. That's not so far away. Shall we take a look?"**

** "Oh yes. This, I have to see." Margot looked at the screen critically, and sent an acknowledgement. The fowl pair strolled wing-hand-in-hand down through the junior section, haughtily acknowledging the greetings and deference of the toons they passed.**

** Two minutes later they spotted Janos standing outside the door. The bull grinned. "Miz Cherri-Jo she's got 'er good! Said I wasn't to go in. She said she'd gone to find you 'case I messed up."**

** "Sensible of her," Danforth smiled, looking around. "Shall we see the sights, sweet Margot?"**

** "Mmm." Margot pushed the door open. Inside the room was still half finished, with painters' trestles and paint cans stacked up against the wall and the furniture covered my dust sheets. In the opposite room was a concrete service staircase, steeply angled at forty-five degrees straight down into the basement. "Well! It seems we've underestimated Cherri-Jo after all."**

** Not all the furniture was covered up. One high-backed wooden chair was pushed right back against the head of the stone stairs, nor was it empty. The dust sheet completely concealed a writhing figure, tied to the chair securely with cargo strapping from a pallet of decorators' supplies.**

** Danforth looked on, amused. "Top marks, I'd say! Of course, it's hard to really damage a toon physically. But psychologically – that's another matter."**

** "Mmm. Just throwing her downstairs in the heat of the moment is one thing. But to leave someone blindfold knowing exactly what's going to happen – but never knowing when it's going to be… maybe for hours… that's quite a refinement, very effective" Margot nodded appreciatively. The swaddled figure thrashed helplessly at her voice.**

** Suddenly from behind them came a voice. "Rodents must be shoved – they must go down the stairs." The voice was very like Cherri-jo.**

** Janos obligingly gave the chair and its occupant a two-hoofed push, sending it toppling over backwards and crashing down out of sight. The sounds of it tumbling downstairs echoed loudly.**

** "Quite decisive. Someone's done well today," Danforth nodded.**

** "Oh. Thank you. I do my little best." Sapphire van Hoogstraaten walked in from the main corridor, her outfit unruffled. "I try and be polite to my elders and betters. I'd never throw anyone downstairs."**

** Margot nodded significantly. "I thought even swaddled up, that looked rather bigger than you," she mused. "And there had to be a reason to cover all the victim – so unnecessary if that was the one expected. For an extra point – could you tell me how you managed it?"**

** Sapphire winked at Janos, the bull's mouth still wide open in a "take" reaction that would have scored points at Acme Looniversity. "May I T-mail it to you? In case I might want to use the trick again with the same company."**

** "Smart girl. That gets you the extra point, right away," Margot almost purred, the sound odd coming from a bird. "Granted." She strolled over to the stairs, and called down. "Cherri-Jo? You've got five more days to do the job we set you. Fail and you're out of Omega from that minute... and when you start to sink around here you go down for keeps." Just as the lame zebra on the wild plains was spotted and pulled down by the ever-vigilant predators, so it happened to Perfecto members who hit any kind of losing streak. Natural Selection was highly regarded there.**

** Sapphire nodded brightly. "I knew there were lessons around here they don't teach us in class!"**

* * *

**Back in the first-year corridor, Sapphire gave a cheerful wave to two of her neighbours. "Everyone happy we've all survived our first week?"**

** One of them was a vampire bat toon, though surprisingly she was dressed in bright pastel designer fashion from one of Acme Acres' most exclusive boutiques for the young of heart and light on intellect. "Oh, yes! Isn't it all just utterly peachy? You can call me Debbee. Everyone does. One D, two B's, three E's."**

** "No IQ." Her neighbour gave a sullen growl. She was a custard-yellow bunny, though her outfit was black leather and chrome studs, with a dull pewter pentagram earring in the root of each genetically cheery ear. How even a toon bunny fitted the huge feet of her kind into narrow pointy-tipped goth boots was hard to work out, except that it looked painful. Behind her open door Sapphire could see she had finished redecorating her room with black leather wallpaper festooned with three-inch spikes. "I go by the mortal name of Morgaine Lucretia Lachrimosa de Doloreuse," she declared haughtily.**

** "That's interesting," Sapphire observed "According to the class rosters your family name is Rainbow Aquarius Moonchylde. Doesn't sound very gothic, I thought."**

** The yellow bunny snarled, exposing professionally sharpened chisel teeth. "That's Gothick, with a k," she growled. "As in Magick, with a k."**

** "'Kay," Debbee giggled. "Isn't she just precious? She tries so hard!" Her jet-black wings hiked in interest; they were fluttery with pink and blue designer ribbons.**

** "Dear Diary," Sapphire mused out loud "I have an outrageously Preppy vampire and an Emo snuggle-bunny for neighbours. They'll either slaughter each other in entertaining new ways, or join a clique together. What to call it? Team Hate? Team Oddball? What odds shall I offer the betting customers?"**

** "Perhaps the Style Council… no, that name's taken," Debbee considered the matter. **

** "Fashion victims united?" Sapphire asked brightly.**

** The vampire laughed. "At least I have fun. Morticia here isn't really wearing black... she just surrounds herself with a depression so deep that most light can't escape."**

** "That's, Morgaine! As in Morgaine de la Faye, dark heroine of the King Arthur tales. Not that you'd have ever heard of anything they don't play on the screens at the Acme mega-mall," Morgaine snapped. "Me join a clique with Miss perfume and pastel here? She's probably a …" she shuddered visibly, and whispered a word so hideous she could hardly bear to say it "…**_**cheerleader**_**."**

** "Oooh! You can tell. I am impressed. Nearly this much," Debbee held her glitter-varnished finger claws almost together so they might just have passed a fine hair between them. **

** "Well. I'm pleased to meet you both socially." Sapphire held out a paw to shake. "Whoops! Have to disarm this first." She pressed a spot in her jacket sleeve, which gave a quiet click. Spreading the fingers of her right paw she pulled out two fine wires linked to small pins like snake fangs hidden in her fur. "Anyway, this is only really good for one shot – the taser charge hardly has a hundred volts left in it."**

** "Miss Techno Toyshop, we'll call you," Morgaine raised an eyebrow. "So, any other tricks up your sleeve?"**

** "Maybe yes, maybe no," Sapphire replied smoothly. "Could you believe – I have a Toon shtick of always having the right little tool for every job?"**

** "Yeah. I can. We were wondering what your ability was," Morgaine nodded, a relieved expression on her face.**

** "Just so. I'm sure you could believe a thing like that." The pink rodent winked. "Well, I'm off to read through my textbooks. I'm sure we'll all have what a friend of my great-grandmother called '**_**the Jolliest term on record!**_**' Great-Grandmother travelled too – she and Great-Grandfather toured the world in an open-topped Bentley in the 1930's committing outstanding crimes and causing baffling mysteries. She only retired after she was awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize for the perfect crime."**

** "Heh. You're going in for next year's prize?" Morgaine's mouth twitched in an approximation of a smile.**

** "That too will remain one of the mysteries." With that, Sapphire vanished into her room and closed the door.**

* * *

**That evening, Cherri-Jo and Janos met up with the third member of their clique, the Japanese student Ichi-Chan. The Siamese heard the story of the day's events, and shook her head. "Cherri-chan, at least you have not dishonoured yourself today," she sighed "you did that years ago."**

** "Never mind that. What do we do about that rodent?" The mastiff snapped "We've only got another five days to get rid of her. She's dangerous."**

** "True." The Siamese pondered. "It is time to present our blank cheque. If we fail and are expelled we will have no use for it anyway." At the start of the second year their Patron had given them just one favour to be called in as a last resort – and today was the day.**

**Five minutes later, Margot Mallard looked up from the message on her T-pad at the rusty, plastic-wrapped container with its Cyrillic inscriptions that sat in her dorm room safe. She looked across to Danforth Drake, and her tail feathers bristled in annoyance. "You know me too well, Danny-boy."**

** The yellow-green duck snickered. "Well, you're the one who insists on all the – refinements," he pointed out.**

** "Not that. You wouldn't bet against me persuading Cherri-Jo and her friends coming to me with cap in hand. Pity. I'd have won the bet. They want to pick this up tonight. And you know the best part of it?"**

** Danforth looked on admiringly. "Margot, your imagination makes a bowl of twisted spaghetti look like a straight edge. Even I –" he struck a dramatic pose "am not that warped. Yet."**

** Margot Mallard looked down lovingly at the old rocket warhead as if it was her first-laid egg. "They insist on taking all the credit for setting it all up. No matter how this turns out – our feathers are clean."**

End Chapter Five


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**The Monday timetable of classes at Acme Looniversity, unlike their equivalent at Perfecto, did not start with an hour's scheduled hazing "**_**to show we mean business.**_**" The senior class had a Film History 701 session instead with the Looniversity's Principal, Professor Bugs.**

** "Eeeh, ya oughta see some o' dem palookas who've tried to mess wit' a peaceful rabbit over da years," Bugs relaxed at the front of the class, his breakfast carrot still half eaten. "In fact – dat's what we's here for. Roll da film!" He sat back and reminisced as scene followed scene, demonstrating how possession of razor wits and most of the world's supply of chutzpah could beat any odds no matter how stacked.**

** As the film finished half an hour later, Shirley McLoon raised her feather-hand. "Like, Professor Bugs, what happened to them all? Professors Fudd, Sam and Coyote are here – even Pete Puma ended up as our janitor - but the rest?"**

** The grey-haired hare shrugged. "Dat Witch Hazel, she was over at Perfecto last time anybody heard. Da hairy orange monster he's a rock star, out in Vegas. Da big guy Sappy Stanley – he's in France. He moved dere years ago – some of us seen him out dere a coupla years back."**

** Babs and Buster exchanges significant glances. Plucky scowled. His attempts at rescuing his idol and mentor Daffy had only got him into the same French cell block.**

** "I mean, how can they live with those mondo negatory vibes, Professor?" Shirley wondered.**

** Professor Bugs crunched his imported rare-breed Peruvian carrot contemplatively. "Dey do what dey do because – dat's who dey are. Ya slaps 'em back when ya has to. Otherwises – ya leaves dem maroons alone, see? And what's past is water under da bridge. Keep it in da archives most of the time, don't go rakin' it up. Don't do me no good – but you students gotta know what's out dere."**

** The class nodded dutifully, taking notes. "Like, Bad Karma is its own punishment, Professor?" Shirley volunteered, casting a high-voltage glare at Montana Max who seemed about to argue with their teacher.**

** "Dat kinda thing," Professor Bugs agreed.**

* * *

**Several miles to the East, Clique One were spared their first class as they had an appointment with someone who by a stunning coincidence the Looniversity were watching get his just desserts that very minute. The desserts tended to be coconut flavoured in the form of extremely wholemeal coconuts dropped from a great height.**

** Sapphire, Felicia and Irma had been escorted by Rhubella through to the Seniors area, and into a windowless metal lined room with wire-brush seals on the door making electrical bugging difficult. Filling most of the far end of the room was an imposing figure they had seen before at the head of their Star School classes.**

"**Ah – volunteers." Professor "Sappy" Stanley boomed, the greenish elephant waving his trunk magnanimously. "How touching. So young and yet already so keen on – upholding everything Perfecto stands for."**

_**So young, but it's still touching how gullible some people are**_**, was what a mind-reading probe would have displayed. Such would have been only to his annoyance and not to his embarrassment; he was utterly shameless with expendable pawns. **

** "You have a job for us, Sir?" Irma asked in her most courteous manner.**

** "Yes." A heavy trunk slapped down on the table like a lead pipe. "As you know, that scene-stealing long-eared rodent has established a rival so-called Looniversity – he constantly tries to upstage this fine establishment, working through his favourites, mostly rabbits. As loyal Perfecto students, you have the privilege of being in a position to take vengeance. Remember this moral, students. Never, ever forget an insult, not even if it takes sixty years before you can get back at them. And just when they think they're safe – come in from a direction and at a time they're not expecting. No doubt that rabbit's got spies watching me all the time – but he might not be watching you, as first-years. We'll make him regret it."**

** "War by Proxy is good enough for the super-powers, Sir, so it's good enough for us too," Irma nodded thoughtfully.**

** "Yes! And what I have he won't expect." Professor Stanley's trunk picked up a dented, rust-spotted film canister. "Your mission is to get into the Looniversity film vaults and plant this in their shelves."**

** Felicia looked at the old canister warily. "We're going to burn the place down?"**

** The elephant chuckled. "We're going to send something up in flames, something they can't insure. That rabbit's reputation. This is a film showing him as my sidekick back in 1938 – years before the books say he ever appeared on screen anywhere – and what a hash he makes of the job! He tries to steal my lines – in fact all the smart ones that he's trademarked, in the film I say them first."**

** Felicia blinked. "I never heard about that before."**

** "Oh, but the whole world should know it by … this time next week. I've put a lot of money into creating this – and it's the only copy. Authentic right down to decayed film stock. Do you know how rare unused but workable 1937 vintage cine film and developing fluids are? Cost me a fortune. If you lose it – don't come back." Professor Stanley gave a smug smile. "Let them try and prove it's a fake with radiocarbon dating or anything else. They won't. The canister is authentic 1937 stock too."**

** Sapphire raised a hand. "Sir – if we hide it on their shelves in a dark film vault, who's going to ever know? It might sit there another twenty years without being found. If the Acme crowd find out what it is – won't they just bin it, or reach for a match?"**

** "Clever girl! That's Part Two. You won't be involved in that part. Let's just say – word will leak out of what's there and just where it is. Someone respected and neutral will demand to look in their vaults – the Looniversity will say "why not?" and that'll be that. The scandal won't come from us, but from someone with no axe to grind." Professor Stanley shook his head in mock sorrow. "That rabbit will be ruined. It'll hack the foundations right from under Acme Looniversity."**

** Clique One looked at each other meaningfully. "I'm in," Irma decided. "It sounds good."**

** "What's the worst that can happen to us, even if we're caught? We're not stealing from their precious vaults, we're... making a generous donation," Felicia agreed. "A rare piece of archive film."**

** "Rare? Unheard-of, I'd say," Irma's beak clicked in amusement.**

** "As long as that carefully aged nitrate film stock doesn't blow up in our paws," Sapphire pointed out. "Yes Sir – Clique One are up for it."**

** "Splendid. And you'll have taken your first step to being full Perfecto students." The elephant rubbed his hands together. "Don't open the canister – the seals must be intact when it's found. This time next week you'll be seeing it syndicated on all the channels." He handed Sapphire a pair of white cotton gloves in her size. "I trust you'll take all – precautions. Handle it by the edge only; there's a set of old but clear rabbit paw-prints on each side, matching "someone" who'll claim he never heard of the film, let alone touched it. Don't ask how I arranged it."**

** "Professor Bunny hasn't been seen without gloves in decades," Felicia mused. "I know he's married now, but I didn't think anyone but his wife's seen him ungloved. I'm impressed, Sir."**

** "Of course." Professor Stanley looked down his trunk at the trio. "I've been planning this since before you were a design sketch. You have the privilege – the honour – to carry part of it out. Don't disappoint me."**

** "Sir!" Irma gave a Scout Salute; Sapphire gave a Roman one. Putting the precious film can in the container provided, protecting the paw-prints in the middle from smudging, Felicia carefully carried it out and back to Sapphire's room – the Clique One headquarters.**

* * *

**Ten minutes later, they were still sitting, looking at the anonymous briefcase on Sapphire's dressing table that held the film. A silence reigned.**

** "Well, how are we going to do this?" Felicia looked around. "We know where the film vaults are. Any student can just walk in there, studying there's part of their classwork." On her T-pad she called up schematics of Acme Looniversity, drawn from a freely published brochure.**

** Irma sniffed. "We think we know. Would you print the real location of anything that valuable? It's probably one giant trap, and the real vaults are a mile under Mount Acme."**

** "Sound Perfecto thinking," Sapphire agreed. "But I've met that bunch. I don't think they really work like that."**

** "Hmm. We need to cover all the bases. So, a Looniversity student could get in there… Sapphire – have you ever worked as a Double Agent before?"**

** "Yes and no," the rodent looked up innocently. "Maybe I am right now."**

** Irma laughed. "Right. Like there's anything that place could offer you, compared to Perfecto standards." She waved a feather-hand at the well-equipped room. "One of the seniors lives in a wrecked car on a dump! Another lives in an alleyway – and those are the seniors!"**

** "I could say I wanted to transfer, and get the tour," Sapphire mused "Problem is - we haven't got time to apply in the usual way. Professor Stanley wants the Plot Device in place this week." **

** "A ten MegaToon Plot Device, armed and the fuse ticking … sitting right under their paws… I like the sound of that," Felicia's whiskers twitched. "So, what's faster? A reverse burglary? Just sneak in, plant it and out with nobody seeing us?"**

** "Nice if it works," Sapphire agreed "If I took an official tour, toons would know a Perfecto girl had been in their vaults, carrying a briefcase."**

** Irma looked at her, annoyed. "What is it with you and body pockets? Just put the canister in the same place you store your toon mallet, like everyone else. Hammerspace doesn't even show up on X-rays."**

** "All right for some," Sapphire opened up her Perfecto jacket. "I've built in Kevlar sheeting, metal mesh with earth wires running down to the shoes, lock picks, diamond saws … the usual things the well-accessorised girl wears where I come from. But one Acme safe or anvil at point-blank range and I'm history – or more like a very messy biology lesson."**

** Irma shook her head. "Do it the hard way if you insist."**

** Sapphire pondered deeply for a minute. "It's still their first week of term at Acme Loo. The place will be full of unfamiliar students wandering around looking lost, taking the wrong turn and ending up in the vaults maybe. Perhaps some turn up late, nobody expects to recognise them yet. The seniors have met me but they haven't met you, I think?"**

** Felicia blinked. "You mean we just … walk in there one lunchtime… gawking like tourists … plant the Device then walk out? That's so stupid it's brilliant!"**

** "It'll need two of you. One to go in first and see if it really is full of traps. The second one carries the payload, only goes in if the coast's clear." Sapphire polished her already spotless claws. "Obviously it can't be me, I might be recognised."**

** Irma snorted. "You were right, back there. Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted. You get to make someone else do the risky bit. Good forward planning."**

** The rodent girl beamed. "Of course. We came here to learn what Perfecto can teach us. That's a good early lesson. Don't you think?"**

** Irma's tail-feathers twitched in irritation. "Point taken. So. If we're to be taken for new Looniversity students – the sooner the better. After this week toons should know who's in their class. We can't get out there today, we've got to arrange time off classes. Tomorrow?"**

** Felicia snickered. "Should be fun. Better skip lunch, we need that hungry look. And… this IS the Looniversity. Remember not to wash."**

* * *

**Monday lunchtime saw the new Perfecto year signing up for sports teams – or rather, to try out for the sports teams.**

** "Volleyball, yes. Ice hockey, no," Irma mused. "Hollow avian bones are good at keeping a toon in the air, not for getting slammed with a tonne of armoured grizzly."**

** "Assuming you don't dodge first," Sapphire agreed. "I'll go for something classical. Swimming I'm good at." She winked. "My family specialise in keeping their heads above water, in every way."**

** "What do they play… where you're from?" Felicia asked. She had come to terms with the Boston she knew was not the Boston Sapphire had travelled to for her "escape" via the MiskaToonic. Or "a" MiskaToonic University, evidently.**

** The rodent considered. "My school wasn't an average one. We had mostly contact sports." She paused. "I've seen even our badminton matches go an hour into injury time before now. We really specialised in stylish classical games like Greek Pankration. It was in the original Olympics."**

** "I saw a History Channel show about that …" Felicia blinked "wasn't it something like free-style wrestling and boxing with leather knuckledusters? The only rules were no biting or eye gouging?"**

** "Top marks! But we did free-style, even for Pankration." Sapphire looked up innocently at the ceiling. "I was junior school lady's Pankration champion. Just shows you don't have to look like a tank to win that kind of thing." She looked at the teams on offer. "What to do, what to do? I think… lacrosse and swimming. Should burn off some of these calories." As ever the lunchtime menu was five-star, and she had chosen rare species shark's fin soup followed by a cold platter of exclusively sourced African bush-meat.**

** "Mmm. Next class is Ethics – the local version." Felicia inspected a claw. "They need a whole class telling us to "get them before they get you"? I suppose there's a lot of refinement."**

** Sapphire nodded happily, then inclined her head as she spotted Charles van der Zot arriving. "Thinking of refinements – Irma has a date for the dance, so have I. Any luck yourself?"**

** Felicia's tail twitched. "Over there. The big dim-looking jaguar. He's Raoul, a sports scholar." She grinned. "I know they tend to get replaced. While he's here I intend getting some use out of him."**

** "Smart girl!" Sapphire applauded. "You're getting in early practice on your Perfecto ethics class, it sounds like!" She cast an appraising eye over the hulking jaguar. "Better be careful though – Charles said he suspects one of the Sports Scholars this year has smuggled a brain in. That could be – interesting."**

** "It could. Risky though." Felicia shrugged. "Well, it's just a dance. He may tread on my paws, but I'll take that risk. Do they make steel toecapped dancing shoes?"**

** Sapphire tapped her own neatly polished shoes. She winked. "They do. Believe me – I never leave home without them."**

* * *

**Across the dining hall at the Omega Sorority table, Cherri-Jo and Ichi-chan were listening in courtesy of their T-pads. For a certain fee (payable to the staff) Seniors could tap into those of Juniors for awhile. **

** The mastiff gave a satisfied grunt. "So, they're looking forward to the party, are they? It's going to be a party they'll never forget. Their first and last at Perfecto!"**

**Ichi-Chan nodded. "Is a terrible thing will be found in her room. Waiting for us. And – is in character for her – nobody will believe her denying it." Having suffered from the annoying rodent's traps before, it would be to Cherri-Jo's credit to keep on going in the hope of getting lucky and successfully hazing a tricky first-year in the cause of duty. Having an actually Toon-lethal trap set would get Sapphire expelled on the spot with no appeal. Appeals were tricky things, giving people time to reflect on the evidence, which was the last thing anyone wanted.. **

** "Yeah. And she's talked about the stuff before. Everyone heard her. Maybe she knows what she's talking about. That's what they'll say." Cherri-Jo grinned. **

** "Hai! I am wondering though. Why is the thing so heavy? Is meant to be only empty shell." Ichi-Chan scratched an ear thoughtfully.**

** Cherri-Jo tapped the side of her muzzle. "If it was empty, the Disposal toons would know that too. They'll take it out and destroy it without wanting to mess with whatever's inside it. Nobody's going to risk getting anywhere near it. So it doesn't matter if it's only water."**

** "Yes, Cherri-chan." Ichi-Chan subsided, but still looked dubious. "Is it not a strange thing for a Perfecto senior to have? Let alone a Junior?"**

** "It's perfect. Let Sapphire be an "International Toon of Mystery" if she wants – the more mysteries the better. I couldn't lay my paws on something like that – but she's Miss Mystery, with her background who knows?" Cherri-Jo sighed admiringly as she looked across to the senior table where Margot Mallard was putting down one of her classmates with a sneer and a devastating one-line quip. The duck girl was her heroine; she wore her self-assurance like a designer gown, and elegant cruelty crowned her like a diamond tiara. "As for seniors - Margot Mallard, she can do anything."**

** "To anyone, including us. Whenever it profits or amuses her. Remember that." Ichi-Chan warned her. **

** Cherri-Jo sniffed. "She believes in Natural Selection, and let the weak go to the wall. Perfecto like to expel, it's how we stay sharp. This time next week someone'll be weeded out all right – and it won't be us!"**

* * *

**The afternoon's classes in Toon Law and Toon Crime flew by, with lively and notorious speakers lecturing on subjects they knew by heart from personal experience. At last four o'clock struck, and the classes filed out.**

** "I'll bet over at Acme Loo they still trot out that old saw "**_**crime doesn't pay**_**" to their deluded students in Script Writing 101," Irma snorted. "They never met our tutors!"**

** "When done properly, it pays like anything else." Sapphire mused "Otherwise it's like seeing a closed business and saying it proves business never pays."**

** "Never be a gangster – high risk and low certainly of profits," Felicia quoted "Be a gangster's lawyer instead – low risk, guaranteed profits. You get paid even if your customer loses!"**

** "Ah, I must introduce you to my family some time," Sapphire said "Back home your talents would be very useful."**

** Felicia blinked. "Which talents?"**

** "Oooh, little things … it's handy that you can survive anything, I could steamroller you flat and slide you through a gap between laser detectors – or pound you through a grill and you'd recover on the far side. I know it'd hurt, but we could make it worth the trouble," Sapphire speculated "And when you got back over here Interpol would have a hard time finding you."**

** "You mean IntoonPol, don't you?" Felicia asked, intrigued.**

** A fine-furred pink tail swished. "Whichever. You say **_**tomayto**_**, I say **_**tomarto**_** …. anyway, it's not likely to happen. I couldn't get a round-trip ticket even for myself."**

** "You're stuck here?" Felicia asked.**

** Sapphire gave that flipping motion of her paw one way then another. "I can go, somewhere. I didn't expect to get here, as such. The next "here" would probably be very different to either. Anyway, I've paid up for the year at Perfecto. And they don't do refunds."**

** Irma gave a snort of laughter. "That goes without saying. Where do you think you are? Do you think our dear tutors are doing this for our benefit?"**

** "Oh, well. You ought to think more "method acting" if you're going to stroll into Acme Looniversity tomorrow, both of you. Don't walk around turning your nose up at everything. Try not to call anyone "pond-scum". Be happy, cheerful – tell yourself and make it show that you've years of gags and slapstick to look forward to and oh wow, aren't you just so pleased you got in?" Sapphire suddenly looked intensely keen and interested.**

** Felicia shuddered. "This had better have a huge payback for us."**

** Sapphire grinned, her chisel teeth sparkling. "You're working for Professor Stanley, and you expect a square deal? To quote sweet Irma here – where do you think you are?"**

* * *

**Over at Acme Looniversity, the senior class had finished an hour earlier and had vanished back to their various homes. Babs, Shirley and Fifi were sitting on a bench by the shores of Lake Acme; they were all looking at the class assignments their mentors had given them.**

** Babs groaned. "It's the last September class we'll be at Acme Loo – and Professor Bugs is just piling it on! I'll be as grey-haired a hare as he is by the time we graduate."**

** Shirley nodded, looking subdued. "Like I wish I didn't keep getting distracted," she complained "I get these – mondo negatory vibes coming in from that direction," she pointed to the high ground to the East, where Perfecto Prep was.**

** "Like ze neighbours playing loud ze music, not to your tastes?" Fifi's luxurious tail waved as she looked at her friend, intrigued.**

** Shirley shook her head. "Remember last Summer they showed us those World War Two films? Way uncool and hostile fer sure… but there was a scene, it's just the way it feels. Remember the end of second reel of "Iron Cross for Flopsy?"" The Looniversity certainly specialised in comedy but there were other classes; there were shelves full of war films, tragedies and "film noir" down in the film vaults that were mostly viewed by toons on the Action Adventure courses..**

** "Hmm. I do." Babs' ears crossed as she concentrated. "That Beatrix Potter/Sven Hassel crossover. Who could forget?" She spin-changed into an appropriate uniform and stared out at the edge of the woods. "I can't see them … but I know they're there," she quoted, her words appearing in sub-titles "I hear tanks moving up … troops digging in. Ivan's coming calling."**

** "Fer sure!" Shirley winced. "And there's something I can't see clearly, only its shadow – it's like major evil, and it's at Perfecto."**

** "Zat thing you said eet was, "ze guano-splatteringly scary", non?" Fifi's tail bristled in alarm.**

** "Exact-o-mondo, Fifi." Shirley closed her eyes, concentrating. "Like that doomsday clock, just hit two minutes to midnight."**

** "And here's me thinking you were just counting down to the start of term. That's generally doom enough." Babs had confidence in Shirley's ability, but there had been false alarms before. Or as Shirley protested, it had definitely happened but on another timeline.**

** The loon cast her a sideways glance. "Plucky's got this massively uncool console game "Retro Rocket Rumble" – run the apocalypse for fun and bonus points or some junk."**

** Babs grinned, slightly embarrassed. "I've played it. Is it the bit where your radars know they've seen something but can't yet tell what, or where it's heading?"**

** "Exact-o-mondo, Babs. My aura is telling me exactly that."**

* * *

**The next day dawned clear and calm; the corridors of Perfecto Prep resonated (despite the deep pile carpets) with the heavy tread of Sports Scholars heading down en masse towards the gym and sports field.**

** "Mmm. Like one of those nature shows. A flood of healthy wild fur and feather heading out on migration," Irma Falco mused, casting an appreciative eye at a large rooster heading past. "Viktor has put in for the fencing team, and so have I."**

** "Epee, sabre or two-pawed Barbarian style?" Sapphire asked, interested. "The gladiators used to like putting different styles against each other. I suppose it'd be like toon mallet and cattle-prod – the first good hit wins the match."**

** "Sabre. His family traditionally went to Heidelberg," Irma said. "In America they judged Perfecto the best equivalent. Ivy league has had its day."**

** "While here, we have Perfecto's very own style; poison ivy. In a league of our own." Sapphire stretched. "Well. Eleven o'clock, I've arranged transport. Not a limo, sorry – we'd look a bit obvious being dropped at Acme Loo."**

** "The only place garbage trucks make deliveries," Felicia snickered. Suddenly the colour drained from her fur as a thought struck her. "Oh no. Surely not?"**

** Sapphire waggled her eyebrows, evidently practicing comic camouflage. "Wait and see. You were the one who said not to wash."**

**As it happened, it was a standard delivery truck that dropped Clique One off just by the Looniversity's kitchen entrance, ten minutes before lunch break. **

** "You look about right… casual respectable." Sapphire looked Irma and Felicia up and down. "No designer wear – and keep your T-pads out of sight, they couldn't afford them." Felicia's first attempt at Acme Looniversity style had been on the "Post-Apocalypse Princess" lines with a lot of torn leather but somehow retaining plenty of cosmetics. It was always surprising how toons spotted squatting in burned-out basements eating dog food out of rusting tins with a saw-backed bayonet, managed to stay so heavily made-up.**

** "Right." They had tossed a gold 1890 ten-dollar piece to decide who was going in first. Felicia had lost. "I don't know if I have nine lives, but if the film vault is the way we'd set one up – I guess today's the day I'll find out."**

** "Brave girl. Off you go. Main corridor, at the end, according to the plans. We'll be tracking you." Sapphire tapped her T-pad. "If you fall into a Toon Hole trap at least we'll know if you vanish off the map."**

** The feline cast her a dirty look. "And what are you going to be doing?" She demanded "While we're off facing all the dangers?"**

** "Little me? I'm facing the true danger around here," Sapphire looked innocent "I'm going in to eat in the cafeteria."**

* * *

**Back at Perfecto, Roderick and Rhubella were out on the sports field criticising the new players when Rhubella's T-pad beeped. She looked down at the message, and her tail swished. "Well. It's from Clique One. The package has been delivered, they say."**

** "Intriguing." Roderick looked at the message. "They really did it? Or just threw the package away and claim someone at Acme Loo must have found it, not their fault?"**

** "No… here's a picture, just got in. That's a film vault all right." Rhubella showed him the screen. Irma's feather-hand could be clearly seen with the ancient film canister, putting it to the back of a dusty shelf. "She's put it next to the last solo Bosko series – nobody's looked at them for years."**

** "Well indeed. They've actually delivered the goods. Brought home the bacon – except the dish is rabbit, but he'll be in a stew anyway by next week." Roderick snickered. "We have a working team available! They're going to make us rich, as long as they last!"**

** "Like Professor Hatta Mari tells them – don't be a mercenary, be their paymaster. They get killed, you keep the money," Rhubella recalled her ethics lessons. "Mmm. We don't need Cherri-Jo and her mob any longer – if Clique One can do this sort of job." By tradition, the most senior and the most junior years at Perfecto worked together. The year below Roderick and Rhubella were ruthlessly trampled and beaten back; they were pressing hard on the senior's tails anyway and needed no encouragement.**

** "Condition's normal and they're coming home, they say." Rhubella's eyes widened. "Roddy! I do believe they're quoting the Enola Gay bomber crew! Stylish – and very apt. They've certainly dropped something on Acme Loo – we can just wait for the bang."**

** The two rats' tails entwined, as they watched the sports coach chivvying hopeful candidates over the sadistic obstacle course. It was always a thrill watching well-laid plans come together.**

* * *

"**I can't believe it was that easy. There must be a catch we haven't seen, somehow," Felicia fumed as Clique One returned to Perfecto that afternoon. "Just wander vacantly in there, drop the package and out again? We didn't even get asked for hall passes!"**

** "They're either absurdly trusting, or incredibly stupid," Irma agreed, preening her feathers. "Possibly both."**

** Sapphire's fine tail swished. "They certainly didn't spend their security budget on food. Or even food substitute."**

** "So – just why did you go there? And pay for a meal like that?" Irma asked "Now they know for a fact there was a Perfecto student around."**

** Sapphire cast her an innocent smile. "But they don't know what we did. That film could have been put there any time, if Professor Stanley has done his homework on it. It could have been there since the Looniversity was founded – who knows? That's the whole point. I dined there to … calibrate my taste buds. Perfecto cuisine seems even better after that."**

** Just at that moment, Rodney and Rhubella arrived. Roderick extended a friendly-looking paw. "Congratulations! You've done your work, it looks like. That's a torpedo under the waterline for Acme Looniversity. It's up to Professor Stanley now."**

** Rhubella nodded, looking Clique One up and down. "Expect news of your promotion at the dance on Friday," she said smoothly. "Someone else will be getting bad news. That's our rule – one comes in, one goes out. Keeps the quality high."**

** Sapphire bowed her head slightly. "I hope we all have a nice time. Something tells me Friday is going to be … an evening we'll never forget!"**

End Chapter Six


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

"**The first full week of classes at Perfecto Prep… don't you think it's just full of fun?" Margot Mallard looked down from the elegant balcony onto the Olympic-sized swimming pool. **

** "Mmm. For us as seniors, sweet Margot." Danforth drake looked down at the scene of watery mayhem below. "Though I seem to recall our own first months here. Something involving a second-year alligator girl who loved to play Great White Shark on us? And who was keen on finding out just how long you really could hold your breath underwater." The difference between Perfecto's freestyle water sports tryouts and a professional super-villain's shark pit in feeding frenzy was mostly one of species rather than behaviour.**

** Margot cast him a sour look. "If there's anything that could put a waterfowl off the water – that'd do it. But we survived, and learned a few useful tricks."**

** The green-brown drake cast an eye over the swimmers below. "That's a tradition that's carrying on. Take a look down there."**

** From their elevated position the seniors could look down and see underwater far better than anyone in the pool. There was a long shape approaching one of Clique One like a submarine moving up to attack. **

** "One of the swans," Margot identified a long neck. "From Team High Ground, Luanne's pet project."**

** At the last minute Felicia spotted the approaching shape heading for her tail. She put both paws flat on the water surface – then suddenly slapped down with all her force. The collapsing bubble of air was like a stun grenade going off underwater; a pale avian figure surfaced shrieking and spluttering with her soaked feather-hands pressed to her ringing ears.**

** "Nice move." Margot raised an eyebrow. "It just goes to show – even first-years pick up a few things."**

** "Gives you hope and faith in Perfecto's future, don't you think?" Danforth pressed close to her side. "They're lucky, that they have such a … darkly illuminated mentor to learn from."**

** Margot smiled wickedly, as she enfolded him in her wing. "And even better – in two days it's the dance. Oh, the jockeying for position – the backstabbing, the crushed dreams, the heartbreak! It almost makes me wish I was a first-year again. They have so much to look forwards to."**

* * *

**Down on the poolside, as the hour drew to a close Clique One hauled themselves out and began to squeeze dry their fur and feathers. **

** "I'm surprised to see you and Irma in this tryout," Sapphire noted "and Viktor too. Cats and vultures aren't famous for swimming."**

** "We were drafted," Felicia admitted. "Most people are – to put them in at least one team they won't do well in. Didn't you end up in the ice hockey squad?"**

** Sapphire smiled distantly. "Yes. I'm looking forward to that. It should be entertaining."**

** Victor smiled. He held up his powered fist; in the pool lighting it shimmered with a dim blue glow. No water adhered to it, and none seemed to have even touched it. "I believed folk thought I would have to take this off to swim, or it would short-circuit most amusingly in the pool." The vulture looked over at Irma. "The technology is rather advanced – but I acquired it in rather unusual circumstances. You may be sure it is not listed in the ACME catalogue."**

** "A nice advantage." Sapphire wrung water out of her head-fur. "We all have them one way or another. I see Charles here is drip-dry, being mostly furless." She looked at the human toon, who slid effortlessly out of the water to join her. Her whiskers twitched. "Exotic. I've seen on the map there's a H.P. Lovecraft National Forest just over the mountain – are your folk originally from somewhere over there?"**

** Charles looked at her appraisingly. "Not through the kind of gateway you mentioned on your travels. Though we do live in that direction – a few thousand miles further down the road. We are in Westchester County, New York State – one could say the Van der Zot family are Westchester County, in all the important ways."**

** "That's interesting," Sapphire's eyes were bright. "They call me a popular girl at home – but I've never dated an entire county before."**

** "If he wasn't at Perfecto, I expect you'd try and sell him a bridge. Counties need bridges, don't they?" Felicia rose, heading towards the showers. **

** A few minutes later, Irma and Sapphire joined her. Sapphire looked around, eyes bright and curious as she took survey of the sights. "That's very interesting. Lots of mysteries."**

** "Mysteries?" Felicia blinked. "This is the one place nobody can hide anything."**

** "Well, yes. That's the point." Sapphire scratched at an ear meditatively. "I see why some of us can walk around in our bare fur – others need a lot more clothes." Irma wore a blue designer two-piece swimsuit despite the fact she normally sat in class in bare feathers from the waist down. Oddly enough the swimsuit was more revealing than her bare feathers.**

** Irma laughed, looking at Sapphire. "I see you certainly do. Most toons can "conceal" before they're old enough to walk. Almost all avians can, and no human toon."**

** "Mmmm. That's a thought. And avians – I can guess why you're that shape, hatching from eggs. But Margot Mallard and a few others are built more on mammal lines, I've noticed." Sapphire looked down at her own slim but definitely female chest. Irma had one flat sweep of damp feathers; even her flight muscles were obviously just that.**

** The hawk snickered. "We're proper, pure avian stock, unlike her. We're built just the way we ought to be. Margot's mother, or grand-mother, or someone further back… preferred fur to feathers for a hot date. It only gets passed down the female line. If she has sons and no daughters, that's the end of her… family inheritance that way."**

** "It can happen in even the best families," Eva Frundsberg put in. "You hear all sorts of stories. For instance, of how the foreign maid was fired while the eggs were in the nest … and nobody knew she'd swapped them for some of her own. One pale egg is very like another till it hatches, and it's naturally the hired help who sit on them. Sometimes the eggshells are analysed after hatching and found to have vegetable dye disguising them."**

** "Can't have unimportant things like eggs disrupting your busy social schedule," Felicia's tail swished in amusement.**

** "Sitting on nests is so … undignified," Irma looked down her sharp beak at the feline. "So old-fashioned. Anyway. It leaves everyone in the clear, and you can bet the maid was shipped back third-class to Outer Hinterland or wherever so she can't deny it." The hawk preened her own flat figure. "Still. An avian male shouldn't be interested in a shape like that. They've no proper reason to be."**

** "But oh, so many are," Felicia snickered in turn. "And don't you just know it." The hawk and the duck cast her dirty looks. "And there's something else Avian girls haven't got, exactly – though they manage somehow." She whispered in Sapphire's large and attentive ear, and the rodent's whiskers twitched in surprise.**

** "Well. This is fascinating," Sapphire said brightly, towelling herself dry. "So much to learn! I must count my blessings. Better hurry up and get to our next class though – I'm keen to see what Deniable Projects is like."**

**Ten minutes later, Clique One were sat with the rest of their year looking eager and attentive. It was not just Acme Looniversity that rewarded good acting.**

** "Is being a good morning, class!" A short, swarthy human toon bounded in and looked around the class keenly, stroking his small moustache. He wore a dark, lapel-less jacket of Eastern European cut, and his dark hair was slicked back. "You will be calling me Mister Boris. No other name. Deniable Projects. What are they being? They are any things you Americans would not take to your lawyers." Suddenly the class was paying full attention without needing their acting skills.**

** Sitting on the desk, he looked much taller; folk noticed the desk was further raised on a platform. "In this class – you will learn oh, so much. How to follow a trail. How not to leave a trail. How to acquire items. How to acquire items, and nobody knowing." He gave a roguish wink. "There will be class assignments and practical homework. Hard and dangerous, oh yes. These alone are not Deniable – trust me on this if nothing else, I am being expert on these matters."**

"**Well, that was interesting," Sapphire mused two hours later. She turned to Charles, who was walking beside her. "I'm not the only one not proportioned like the rest of you."**

** Charles shrugged. "I believe he came to Perfecto via Eastern Molvania. They say you work well if you stay hungry – since his old Fearless Leader was deposed I expect Mister Boris must have worked these past twenty years very well indeed."**

** "We certainly do seem to collect teaching talent here. I wonder if Perfecto ever head-hunted staff from Acme Looniversity? Seeing how the other side thinks is always useful." Sapphire looked at one of the large-screen display boards advertising the dance, her tail twitching.**

** "Not such a bad idea." Charles looked at her appraisingly. "Perhaps we could sell them on the idea they're reforming us? Encouraging for them and highly amusing for us. Especially since they may work cheaper if they believe it's missionary work."**

** "I like the way you think." Sapphire's paw squeezed his.**

** The human toon looked down, and nodded. "Sapphire – I won't deny I've always thought you fur-bearing toons as strictly – beneath my dignity." He did not pull his hand away.**

** "Mmm. And the thought of all that pale furless skin reminds me of third degree mange – or some terrible genetic disease," Sapphire's eyes were bright. "Quite, quite a hideous idea."**

** Charles gave a tight smile. "Just as long as we understand each other."**

* * *

"**Star School, Deniable Projects, Social Status Awareness, and trying out for sports teams." Felicia sat on the comfortable white leather sofa in Sapphire's room, looking at her timetable. As evening fell, Clique One had assembled to pool information. "One can see how a Perfecto graduate gets to the top."**

** "They certainly give us plenty for our money," Irma agreed grudgingly. "Then – they have ways of getting it back. Those T-pads are customised and compulsory – you can't use a standard commercial model here. Break it or lose it and you'll weep at the replacement price."**

** "I wonder what little extras they put in here." Sapphire looked at her personal device. "There's the obvious one – it has a GPS, so they can track where we are. Plus, it has a camera and a microphone – I don't suppose it's always us that sees and hears through them."**

** Felicia's fur bristled, and her eyes went wide. "I use it as a bedside alarm!"**

** Irma snickered. "Wake up and smell the cat food, kitty. Or more likely – wave hello to the studio audience. I don't suppose you've anything they haven't seen before."**

** "At least I have something to look at." Felicia's muzzle jerked up haughtily.**

** "Anyway. It's the same for everyone. Privacy is like everything else around here – you have to buy it, or outsmart your way to it." Sapphire relaxed on her bed. "I'm not saying they are bugged – but if you could, wouldn't you?"**

** Felicia sniffed. "Yes. Or at least I'd sell them devices to jam the bugs – whether there were any or not."**

** "Smart girl!" Sapphire patted her jacket. "Taser-proof metal mesh works just fine for me. It'll block any signal just as well as special radio shielding. When I want privacy the T-pad goes into the pocket. I've met this kind of thing before."**

** "I expect there'll be plenty to watch at the dance," Felicia said "Raoul can dance, so he says. I hear it's a "formal best" occasion, so I'm getting my Autumn gown out."**

** "That should cause some of us a few problems," Irma jerked her beak disdainfully towards the corridor. "Sweet Morgaine the Goth bunny… that should be an interesting sight. Her best black shroud, or a black leather ball gown maybe? With a razorwire corsage?"**

** "Well, yes. Some people do make life difficult for themselves," Sapphire agreed. "I wonder if she's found herself a date for the dance? I believe attending is compulsory."**

** "Yes… they don't want anyone to miss out," Irma said "like team sports here – Perfecto don't care that you can't do it well. That way you become the entertainment for the rest." A wicked smile was on her beak. "You can dance?"**

** "Oh, yes. I can formally dance in both ways – both the Pogo and "the Grapple". You do it differently here?" Sapphire's eyes were wide lakes of innocence. "At home, the dance style of the year 1977 was declared as the official high water mark of good taste and deportment, and was enshrined permanently in the written laws of etiquette."**

** Irma snorted. "The Pogo and The Grapple? Oh, yes, I bet. It'd be good to have a lie-detector around here."**

** "At Perfecto? You're kidding." Felicia argued "It'd light up like a Christmas tree before you got it within a mile. Our Ethics classes alone would trigger it at a hundred yards."**

** "Yes. It's refreshing to be somewhere they don't argue with my family motto," Sapphire stroked her tail meditatively.**

** "Which is?" Felicia's ear perked up quizzically. **

** The rodent smiled, looking a little wistful. "Money and truth are valuable items. If you have too much of them around you get inflation – and nobody wants that."**

* * *

**The final two days of the class week seemed to race by, with Sapphire trying out for the ice hockey team on Perfecto's indoor all-year ice rink. That game went fifty minutes into injury time, and Sapphire walked away smiling.**

** Cherri-Jo, Ichi-chan and Janos were not smiling as they looked at the footage from the security cameras. "Now do you agree? She's plain dangerous," Cherri-Jo growled. **

** "Hai, Cherri-San." The Siamese flicked her tail. "And will only get worse with what she learns here."**

** "Unlike some of us." Cherri-Jo put in snidely, looking at the oriental toon. Her partner in crime could still switch her abilities on convincingly enough, but it now took effort and was getting harder as she left kittenhood behind. When she had first arrived at Perfecto she had been devastatingly cute; the staff had handed out modified ex-Civil Defence circular slide rules to calculate the zones ranging from utter devastation out to light nausea.**

** Ichi-chan hardly flicked a whisker. "I at least started as adorable. There is still temple to me in Perfecto grounds dedicated to my Adoration."**

** "The mouse." Janos was still staring at the screen. "How come we don't just mallet her proper?"**

** Ichi-chan sighed. "You are watching same show as us? That is why." On the screen a rhino "sports scholar" took a swing at Beryl with her stick while the referee was being distracted by waved money. It did not end happily for the rhino, though they had to rewind and play in slow motion to see exactly what happened. "Is not looking like Sapphire uses special Toon abilities – but is naturally just very fast, very trained for this."**

** "Right. We'll go with the plan." Cherri-Jo cast a meaningful glance at her dorm room safe where the old warhead rested. "So, this trap is meant for us. How would she set it?"**

** Ichi-chan considered. "When we are so mad at her winning – we go straight round and tackle her in room she has trapped expecting us. First, you will be dismissed from Omega sorority – you will in public just snarl and bear it, yes? Then we find the trap. Photograph it. Run in panic to staff. You will be back when she is expelled."**

** "So we'll have to set it up beforehand." Cherri-Jo mused, her muzzle wrinkling in concentration. "Right. When she's at the dance, we can get in then. It'll be the last waltz for her at Perfecto."**

* * *

**Evening fell, and the junior year at Perfecto was a seething mass of preparation, mutual envy and barely suppressed hatred. Morgaine Lucretia Lachrimosa de Doloreuse stalked out of her room into the common area, her ballgown on and a supercilious sneer on her face.**

** "That's very interesting, Rainbow," Sapphire said brightly, looking up from a couch "a designer ballgown in actual black leather and studs. White lily is usual for funerals, not a corsage."**

** "Don't call me Rainbow." The gothic bunny snapped, her ears shaking in rage. "So, you're not wired up with any toyshop surprises tonight? No curare tipped claws to use if your date gets too pushy?"**

** "I neither confirm nor deny." Sapphire gave a placid smile. She was dressed in a pale lilac gown with long gloves and bare shoulders, her tail accented by a large red bow by its root. That finely furred pink tail swished against the exclusive panda leather sofa. "As for Charles getting too pushy – he knows how to behave, with his family traditions."**

** "Oh, so? They started off as Railroad barons, worked their crews half to death for starvation wages and ruined all their rivals – but the law couldn't touch them." Morgaine looked down her muzzle.**

** "Yes. That's in his dossier. I did say he knows how to behave." Sapphire winked. "So, I expect we'll all have a good time. Fifteen people will spike the punch, all of them believing they're the only ones who could possibly have thought of it…"**

** Just at that moment, Irma and Felicia emerged from Irma's room where they had been checking each other's grooming. Irma wore a floor-length green gown with her tail-feathers gathered in a red bow, while Felicia was sheathed in silver-grey silk.**

** "Well, the thrift stores at Acme giga-mall had a profitable day yesterday, I see," Morgaine cast a critical eye over the pair. "Why, Irma – didn't they have any tops in avian style left in that bargain bin?"**

** The hawk sniffed disdainfully. Her chest was just slightly padded out. "It's a classical tradition, Miss 'Runaway Bride from a biker's' wedding-party'. Perfectly acceptable for even the most pedigree avian. Which I am."**

** "Ooh. I can see we're all going to have a fine time tonight." Sapphire rose, her eyes bright. "No point in wasting perfectly good spite on each other. So – shall we head down to our dear audience?"**

* * *

**The Perfecto ballroom was an exquisite creation of crystal chandeliers above and sprung hardwood dance floor below, with an exquisitely dressed crowd milling elegantly like a circling pack of sharks.**

** "Ah, the memories." Margot Mallard looked around the ballroom with dangerously glittering eyes. "I so recall our early days, dear Danny-boy. My mentor advised me well, how to get you under my thumb the very first time."**

** "As did mine the week after, sweet Margot. Turnaround is fair play – but despite that, very enjoyable." Danforth Drake was impeccable in a white suit, his webbed feet polished till they shone. "Let the Acme Loo-sers moon over vapid romance films. Power and control are so much more intriguing."**

** Margot looked him up and down, approvingly. Despite her drake's assertions, she was in the lead ninety percent of the time – but the occasional humiliation kept her razor-sharp, and she made a point to always repay it in full with loan-shark scale interest on top. Their mentors had taught them well. "Hatta Mari says the greatest thrill she ever experienced was in the War, when she lured enemy aviators to their doom. Just knowing what was to happen later on to the toon in her arms … the anticipation is most of the fun, she says."**

** "Thinking of those times, we have a Viktor von Vultur here, the smooth bird over there with the steel hand and the monocle. First time I've seen him wearing that. His Uncle worked with your Mentor, back in the day. Or as they used to say, "Der Tag."" Danforth stared hard at the first-year, and smiled. "I think that monocle is more than it seems. I spy a data link to something built into his tuxedo." Danforth watched as the vulture moved through the crowd. "He's got terahertz vision, unless it's plain infra-red. There's a bird with a view to succeed one day."**

** "Indeed. And look at our sweet juniors! Decidedly dressed to break hearts. Or possibly other internal organs, as the passion takes them." Margot nodded towards the entrance where Clique One were making an entrance. "I was planning to give them some style tips. They obviously don't need any, but it would never do to let them know that." Margot cleaved through the crowd like the bow of a destroyer through the water, a sincere-looking smile on her bill. "Sweet girls! You do look marvellous!"**

** Sapphire looked around at the scene, her eyes wide with delight. "It's certainly impressive. Miss Mallard – you're here as chaperone?"**

** Danforth drake snickered. "As if she would."**

** Margot raised an eyebrow. "Other places have chaperones who try and tone down the fun. At Perfecto we're more … facilitators." She looked around at the costumes. "Very interesting. Everyone here is more than they seem. And I don't just mean what our scanners on the door pick up."**

** A pink rodent cast her an open, friendly look. "I've been so looking forward to tonight. It's been a strenuous week, but quite fun."**

** "Yes. I heard." Margot had followed six failed attempts of Cherri-Jo and her team to inflict severe pain and humiliation on the rodent. "You've come through so far, and tonight you take your first step up. At ten, we welcome you to Omega sorority. That is, informally. The formal – initiation comes later."**

** "Ah. Initiations. Margot just loves initiations." Danforth winked. "She has some ideas that are truly all her own. At least, one hopes they aren't in general circulation."**

** "Oh, you've seen nothing yet." Margot cast the drake a smouldering look. "We have another year here in Perfecto – and rest assured you'll find out." She looked around at the other first-years, and heaved a deep sigh. "And now – we'll leave you to it. Ten o'clock, remember!"**

** "I do look forward to it." Sapphire nodded happily. **

* * *

**Back in the empty rooms Sapphire and the rest had left, three figures moved quietly as Cherri-Jo, Ichi-chan and Janos crept in. Lock codes were changed every week, but the servants were bribeable on a strictly agreed Union scale. Janos carried a swathed shape the size and shape of three gallon jars stacked on top of each other.**

** "That's the room." A canine tail trembled in rage. "We can get in but – don't step on any floor tiles. Rig the Device to the door handle, so it looks like it'll fire." She opened the door silently, sighing with relief when no existing traps went off. Walking in there was not an experience she was keen to repeat; even a toon took major pain from plunging onto punji sticks.**

** Janos nodded. The old metal container only had two protrusions, a faded red tape and a ring. He pulled a length of wire from his pocket and tried to attach it to the ribbon without success – the half-rotted cloth just tore through. Cursing, he pulled it away – and the tape clattered to the floor trailing a pin. There was an audible click from inside the device.**

** "What was that?" Ichi-chan's ears went up in alarm.**

** "Don't matter. I got it fixed proper now." Janos fastened the wire to the remaining ring, and balanced the device on the edge of the chair. "Looks OK?"**

** "Mmm. It'll have to do." Cherri-Jo looked around the room by the beam of her flashlight. There were books piled up high on the shelves, an ACME catalogue open on the bedside table and oddly enough a large first-aid kit was kept handy. "Come on – let's get back to the party. Next time we come in here, we'll have witnesses." She looked up at Janos's uncomprehending expression, and sighed. "Ichi, explain it to him again?"**

** The Siamese gave an ironic bow. "We must be seen to be here for proper reasons. We will have a Senior to watch us storm in and punish impertinent rodent, for which she is long overdue. We cannot take the pictures now." She pulled her camera out of Hammerspace in explanation. "First must get pictures of party. Let camera put time and dates on them making evidence, then here. Timing is everything."**

** The three quietly closed the door and headed back to the ballroom. **

* * *

**Two miles away, it was a clear Autumn evening in the woods and fields of Acme Acres as two waterfowl headed back from an early evening film show.**

** "Plucky – are you like on a vow of good behaviour, or some junk?" Shirley McLoon looked suspiciously at her green-feathered escort as they passed the shores of Lake Acme. The yellowing leaves on the trees around rustled softly in the Easterly wind. "We sit together for a whole movie and you don't fall asleep, talk over it or try anything on with me. Are you feeling all right or what?" Her aura had built up an impressive psychic blast charge, and was getting uncomfortable holding on to it. Most evenings she would have found good reason to blast Plucky to a crisp long before now.**

** Plucky sighed. He sat down on a park bench. "Shirley. It's our last Autumn here. This time next year – where will we be? I mean, where will we be, you and me?" He had plans for Hollywood and either fame or fortune though preferably both; he knew Shirley considered Hollywood a spiritual smog bank unfit for Toon habitation.**

** Shirley hesitated then sat down next to him in the moonlight. Plucky was generally annoying, but there was something far more disturbing about him when he was refusing to be annoying. One, she had a billion volt answer to; the other was harder to cope with. She realised the other Plucky was the one she agreed to sit in the movie theatre with. "I can, look into the future, you know? I don't need my crystal ball for everything."**

** "Would you, loon of my life?" Plucky had memorised the lines from a rented DVD of social charm, but found them coming to his beak unbidden.**

** Shirley's expression softened for a second. "Well, okay. But don't go asking me for any hot lottery numbers or horse race winners. My powers aren't meant for that."**

** The green drake nodded, looking at Shirley as the loon began to concentrate. He knew he was in a strange mood – and it was no lie that he wanted to see what the future held. There was an awful void in him somewhere as he contemplated life without her.**

** Shirley took a deep breath. "I'm scanning the future paths..." she announced, as she began to levitate off the bench. "Tracing the branching trees of possibilities... it's like the many-fold ways unfold every second at our feet, you know? I see ..."**

** Suddenly Shirley convulsed, her eyes wide open in shock as if her aura's psychic bolt had short-circuited. "For toon's sake, no! It's Here! It's now!" Her levitation failed as she lost concentration and she hit the wooden bench with a thump. "Plucky – hold me. Right now."**

** Plucky was so amazed he could do nothing but obey. He had dreamed of this – but holding in his wings a loon who was trembling in panicked shock had not been in the plan. "Shirley?"**

** A pair of blue eyes looked up at his, filled with a bleakness he had never thought to see in them. "Plucky – shut up and listen. We've got no time. Way out in the deserts in KazakhsToon, there's a place that's like a way gross festering sore on Mother Earth that won't heal. 'kay? I cannot believe anybody could be so totally uncool as to test what they tested there. Even after all these years - any toon trying to cross those miles – they go in, they don't come out. You get it? And – it's here, right now. And … the way the wind's blowing ..." She pointed with a trembling feather-hand towards the city lights of Acme Acres, a mile and a half downwind.**

** "Yipe! What? Where? How?" Plucky had sometimes pitied Shirley her crippling inability to lie; right now he regretted it more. He looked upwind, to where a distant shadow broke the horizon. "Oh. That figures. Perfecto. They've decided to wipe us off the map? They're that sore at losing?"**

** "It's not like that. But – it's going to happen. Very soon. Unless someone stops it." Shirley clenched her beak, trying to think of what to do.**

** Plucky had already pulled his phone out of hammerspace, and hit the speed dial buttons. "Buster? This is not a prank, old buddy, old pal. Are you alone?" His expression softened for a second., as he turned to Shirley. "Babs is with him. That's good." Uncovering the phone, his voice became more confident. "Buster. That front door of yours can seal airtight, can't it? Seal it, and don't open it for anything. Call Hamton, Fifi and the rest and tell them to get into shelter, right now. Keep watching the news. Shirley's – found something. And … get Babs to call her family. Seal their burrow tight. I'll explain later – I hope." He sighed and returned the phone to its storage. "Did I call the cops, the Governor? No. Would they believe you in time? No. But ..."**

** Shirley looked at him, and swallowed hard. Suddenly she did something she had never done before – grab the green drake and kiss him hard, full on the beak. Then she seized his feather-hand and dragged him to his feet. "Now, Plucky – we've got to get over there before it's too late."**

** It was a night for revelations. Plucky drew a deep breath, and spin-changed into his slightly shoddy super-toon outfit, as The Toxic Avenger. He gave a slightly embarrassed grin. "It's my fastest mode of transport. If whatever over there hasn't happened yet I'll have to call myself …" he paused, striking a heroic pose "**_**The pre-emptive Avenger!**_**""**

** Shirley slapped herself in the face, and groaned. "Like, whatever. Now let's get moving!" She took his feather-hand in hers, levitated to reduce her weight to zero and the pair of them streaked across Eastwards against the freshening breeze.**

* * *

**Over at Perfecto, the ballroom doors were thrown open to let the usual fug of mixed musks and pure bad feelings dissipate a little into the grounds. There was an elegant terrace on that side of the building, where couples walked out together or crept away to plot in the shadows.**

** "A fine evening." Charles van der Zot strolled out in the moonlight with Sapphire on his arm. "At such times one's thoughts turn to…"**

** "Selling unwary customers legally non-binding plots of lunar real estate?" Sapphire looked up at the gibbous Autumn moon.**

** "Well, that, of course," Charles admitted. "And genuine rare earth lunar mining schemes. But also – of alliances."**

** "I quite agree. We could work well together. You have local contacts and resources. I have – some rather non-local ones." Sapphire looked up as they passed the life-size statue of Perfecto's founder, Witch Hazel. "There are so many things to see here. So many questions." She examined the statue closely. "Such as why is that statue in some kind of force field?"**

** "So many questions indeed – and around here a toon can learn many things to her disadvantage," Charles followed her gaze. "It may or may not be to keep the pigeons off the last reminder of our dear departed founder."**

** "Departed?" Sapphire's chisel teeth gleamed in the moonlight "I thought toons didn't usually die?"**

** Charles gave a sharp, hard laugh. "Departed, is what I said. She vanished years ago – there were rumours that she wasn't getting along with the newer Perfecto management at all. Probably they weren't giving her a big enough cut. But you always get that kind of rumour."**

** "Indeed." They paused, as the sound from within the ballroom radically altered. It sounded more like a riot; even the state-of-the art sound system was giving out a noise like an industrial grinding machine mixed with a raucous snarl. Toons were suddenly dancing in a new style prompted by the grainy video footage displayed on the wall-sized screens; each couple was in what looked like a crushing wrestling embrace.**

** Sapphire clapped her paws together. "They're playing my tune! I didn't think anyone over here even knew how to dance The Grapple!" She watched as a pair of Sports Scholars spun out onto the terrace, their paws locked around each other's necks. "Ooh! They managed to squeeze each others' eyes clean out! It's a good thing they're toons."**

** Charles looked on, an eyebrow raised. "I've never heard that style played around here." Suddenly he smiled. "Could it be a certain someone hacked into the play lists and dropped this one in?"**

** Sapphire gave a curtsey. "As one of your fellow toons said years ago … "**_**Eeeeh... it's a possibility!"**_** But would I do a thing like that to all my dear Perfecto friends?"**

** Charles kissed her on the nose. "Oh yes, And I think you did it very well."**

** Just then, the big clock above the entrance chimed ten. Sapphire shrugged, and sighed. "Time to head back in – perhaps after that we'll be "last toons standing" which should clear the crowd a bit. At least we'll find out who's wearing armour under their finery."**

** The pair walked back indoors, stepping over various recumbent forms busy regenerating. Sapphire clapped her paws happily at the sight of a wolf-girl dancing frenziedly, surrounded by a circle of groaning casualties. "Corrine's the last one standing – or should I say slam-dancing?"**

** Margot Mallard was on the dais above the mayhem with several of the seniors, looking on with interest as Sapphire approached. "Come on up," she invited. As the rodent stood by the seniors, Margot put a friendly wing on her shoulder. "Attention, Perfecto! For services rendered and the style in which they were performed, we of the Omega Sorority invite Sapphire van Hoogstraaten to join our sisterhood. Congratulations." She gave a wicked smile. "As ever, this means the lowest ranking sister is immediately cast out – back to the common rabble from whence they came."**

** In the corner, Cherri-Jo gave a snarl that needed little acting. She was just about to slope away on her long-planned mission when Margot Mallard spotted her.**

** "Why, look who it isn't. Come on up, Cherri-Jo!" She waved an imperious wing. "Come on up. We'd like a word with you."**

** The mastiff hesitated – but reluctantly obeyed.**

** "Seems like this stage would be a little too crowded for me and her… could lead to accidents," Sapphire said, deftly vanishing down the far side of the platform. "I'd better go and freshen up. I'll be back shortly, Charles!" With that she was off, before Ichi-Chan or Janos could stop her.**

** Sapphire skipped rapidly down the plush carpeted hallways back to her room. Before opening the door, she looked down at the carpet just outside it. Having a two-inch pile carpet meant that it took impressions easily – and she made a point of smoothly brushing the strip right in front of her door whenever she went out. Nobody was likely to stand that close to a wall – and one clear print was pointed straight into the room.**

** "Hmm. Could be the maids. But probably not." From her purse Sapphire pulled an Acme Product detector, and scanned it around. No lights lit up on it. "Not a local product trap, perhaps. So – there could be company waiting for me." **

** Sapphire pulled off her long gloves, revealing somewhat sharpened claws beneath them. She quietly hummed a happy tune as she painted something on her claws from a small bottle that was certainly labelled claw varnish. Inspecting them critically, she took a deep breath – then kicked the door open, rolling into the room and across to the far side.**

** Had any Toon such as Cherri-Jo been standing behind the door waiting with a raised mallet, she would have been flattened. The door slammed back, knocking a long cylinder from its position on the chair – and as the door bounced back and locked shut, the wire attached to the ring pulled tight.**

** Sapphire had caught a glimpse of what was there and carried on rolling, diving around the corner into the en-suite bathroom, slamming the door shut just as the container hit the ground. The wire attached to what just happened to be its fuze pulled tight.**

** There was a surprisingly quiet explosion, like a cherry-bomb muffled underwater. In its prime the old Enhanced Dip warhead had been specified to scatter its contents over fifty yards of battlefield without setting the volatile solvents alight. The old explosives had not kept their full strength but it was enough to shatter the case throwing forty litres of the contents across the room in a liquid spray – and something else besides Dip.**

** Dip was a pungent greenish liquid. Mixed in with this was a fine silvery powder that seemed to sparkle like glitter in the sun. Most of it was still caked inside the shell, but a few flecks were mixed in with the liquid splashed in the room. Where that touched, holes appeared in everything as if a laser was stabbing at the fabric of existence.**

** Sapphire stood in the bathroom, taking her paws away from her ringing ears. A few drops of liquid had splashed through the chink in the door, and had hit her. She frowned as they dissolved the Toon fabric dress like fire consuming tissue paper. Her body was not affected – though the fur instantly turned from its cheerful pink to a neutral grey-brown. "Toon fabric – it has to be Toon matter to cope with all the squash and stretch they do." She sneezed at the scent; whatever else it might or might not do, a room full of solvent vapour was nothing breathable by a life-form with real DNA rather than chromoplasm – though this particular mix would be corroding a Toon's lungs like boiling water on candy-floss.**

** Three seconds later she was in the shower with the cubicle closed tight, the full force water jets washing off what had landed on her and partly scrubbing the vapour out of the air. Sapphire looked out at the room which was gradually dissolving, fast or slowly according to how much Toon matter was in each component. Soon it would eat through the walls or windows and spill out into the neighbourhood, probably inconveniencing toons and lowering property values for several counties around – assuming any property was left or indeed any buyers.**

** The only non-Toon rodent in Acme Acres frowned at the sight. She had caught a glimpse of the container, and recognised the Russian word for "Catalyst". Where a normal solvent would dissolve such and such a weight of its target and saturate, a catalyst would just keep going like a zip fastener unravelling the bonds of Toon matter. **

"**This," Sapphire told herself as the room began to fall apart "is annoying."**

End Chapter Seven


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

**Perfecto Prep University, as its staff and students would look down their muzzles and tell you, was not a place for cheap Toon gags, shticks and trick talents. They would point down the road any student who pulled a slapstick stunt and forcibly point out Acme Looniversity was the place for them, and good riddance.**

** The first-year block stood alone in the grounds and almost all its residents were across the campus in the main ballroom; the walls were well soundproofed and when a past-expiry-date Toon-killing rocket warhead went off in Room 19, nobody outside the building heard it. Which is not to say it went unnoticed.**

** Two hundred yards away in the elegant staff quarters, Professor Stanley's trunk went rigid in shock as one of his hidden abilities triggered. The elephant gasped, scattering the cards on the table where he and some of his rival colleagues were paying high-stakes pinochle. "I smell a lawsuit!" **

** Hatta Mari raised an elegant eyebrow, the pigeon lady's feathers permanently unruffled. "It's out of office hours, Stanley. Business never sleeps, I know, but surely we can call our people for that tomorrow."**

** "No. This one is close to home. Too close. We're standing on it." Stanley stood up – just as one of the liveried servants knocked and entered discreetly. He was a bulldog dressed in an elegant, old-fashioned three-piece dark woollen suit with a gold watch-chain.**

** One of the features of Perfecto Prep was its corps of silent, neatly liveried servants who kept the place running from day to day and made a point of being as nearly invisible as possible. Most of the students regarded them in the same way as the light switches – they were there, and they worked, and needed nothing more thought about them. That suited the Perfecto management very nicely; they had filled the deferential uniforms with the pick of arcane talents and paid them well to keep quiet about it. Anyone in the post of Head Butler was a toon to be taken very seriously indeed.**

** "Sirs," that worthy announced to the staff "there has been a serious infringement of the rules. One of the first-years has detonated an Enhanced Dip device in her room."**

** Hatta Mari sighed. "Then we have a vacancy at Perfecto. Also, some rebuilding and decontamination works ahead. Still. If we can prove it was her own device in her room we can avoid too much legal unpleasantness. The first year block is technically on Eastern Molvanian soil."**

** The butler gave a quiet cough. "The device appears to be akin to that detonated over Kashmolev in the KazakhsToon TSR in March 1952, madam. It is a catalytic device." Nobody asked how he knew this; butlers always knew such things. "It will shortly corrode through the walls and inconvenience all areas for a considerable distance downwind. Including the metropolis of Acme Acres."**

** "Which is not on Eastern Molvanian soil. This could ruin us!" Professor Stanley's trunk wrinkled in rage. He was the ranking staff member on the spot; there was a board of Governors but they mostly lived in sunny tax havens and were not handy in emergencies. "Find out who was caught in the Dip and have her expelled, back-dated to yesterday. No Perfecto student could do such a thing."**

** "Which still leaves us about to appear on the world news," put in a sleekly dressed Jackal, the head lecturer of the Profit Pursuit course. "Unless we do something fast and drastic."**

** "And deniable," Professor Stanley put in. He looked at the head Butler. "How do you break down Dip? Without having to order tankers of chemicals we can't lay our hands on in the next twenty minutes."**

** "Sir." The bulldog consulted his watch "twenty minutes may be an optimistic assessment. There is one feature of Dip that may help. It is immensely – inflammable."**

** The staff looked at each other, and nodded. "We have fire insurance. We don't have "**_**melt down Acme Acres and its population into a toxic pool of fuming pigment**_**" insurance." Professor Stanley summed up. "The surviving first-years are a safe distance away at the dance, and none of them need to know about this being anything but a fire." Despite what some people believed, in fact Perfecto had some very strict principles, chief of them being the Law of the Least Possible Legal Liability.**

** "Which leads to the next question, darling." Hatta Mari looked at him from under half-closed eyes. "Who wants to get close enough to light a match? A room full of fumes could take half the block down in the blast. Getting blown half-way across the state is one thing but if there's unburned residues – it'd be toon-lethal."**

** "Obviously none of us," the jackal said smoothly. "I suggest we make one of our Sports Scholars an offer he can't refuse. They're more replaceable, after all."**

** "Is my area of expertise, Deniable Projects!" Mister Boris rubbed his hands together gleefully. "We do not use big dumb sports scholar, oh no. Cheap is good – but today reliable is better. We have to be giving exact orders to him in person, of what to be doing. That personally links us to fire, is being very bad. No, we get seniors team in. We give them problem to solve, drop hints maybe – they nice and sharp as knives, they find a way. Their decision, their reason to keep beaks and snouts shut after."**

** "Agreed. If we go bankrupt, they don't graduate." Professor Stanley picked up his T-phone.**

** The butler inclined his head. "Then, Sirs and madam, I shall start forthwith an evacuation upwind of the other students and staff." He departed silently. Butlers always knew what to do.**

* * *

"**The last time I was here, they were promising I could stay." Plucky Duck approached the professionally groomed grounds of Perfecto at about a hundred feet altitude, his rather tatty cape flapping in the slipstream. "I only had to sabotage our own American Football team and they'd let me transfer over. Ha! Can you believe they thought I was going to sell out Acme Loo for the sake of a mere life of luxury?" His eyes bulged as he took in the sights. "Oooh. Over there, look! They've got a new bio-dome… it's got an indoor beach, Shirley! Permanent tropical sunshine. Wave machines. They didn't have that last time."**

** "Like, get crucial, Plucky." Shirley was holding on to him – or more accurately keeping formation; the levitating loon could have let go of Plucky's feather-hand any time and descended to earth as gently as any feather. "We're here on a mission, 'kay?" She closed her eyes and concentrated. A few seconds she winced, and pointed down to a two-storey block. "It's there. I can feel it like a bleeding wound in Mother Earth." Her eyes went wide. "It's got out already! We're too late to stop it – we'll have to deal with it."**

** "And so says the Toxic Avenger!" Plucky streaked down towards the building indicated. A second later his expression changed to one of panic as the ground loomed up ever faster. "Umm, Shirley – I knew I should have checked these air brakes…"**

** Shirley let go of his feather-hand and gently descended like a soap bubble to stand on the manicured lawn outside the first-year block. She shook her head, wincing at the sight and sound of Plucky making a high-speed landing as graceful as a boxcar dropped from a hundred feet, digging a wide furrow as his beak ploughed into the grass. "Eww… that's got to hurt." She settled down next to the crashed and mangled mallard, whose fragments slowly reassembling. "Have you tried – aromatherapy for that?"**

** For a second all was quiet around them. The rooms on the ground floor were common rooms, and the private rooms were up on the first storey. All of them were dark, their inhabitants elsewhere – except for one. There was a pallid, flickering light in the room as Toon matter was broken down, and even the glass of the window seemed to sag slightly as if it was beginning to melt. Evidently time was about to run out.**

** Just then, the four people in the world Shirley least wanted to meet came around the corner and things became even more complicated.**

** "You!" Margot Mallard's feathers bristled out as she spotted the two Acme Looniversity waterfowl. "What are you doing here?"**

** Shirley cast her a high-energy glare. "Pulling your tails out of the wringer, as if you deserved it? What sort of way grody junk are you playing around with up there?"**

** "I made a few stinks with my chemistry set when I was a fledgling – but nothing like that." Plucky winced, shaking the mud off his beak and looking up. "So, what Perfecto class is "**_**build a city-buster for fun and profit**_**" one of the projects? Weapons of Mass Toon Destruction 101?"**

** "Never mind that." Roderick snapped. "It's our problem, we're handling it. And you're trespassing, super-dweeb." He snickered, spotting the impact in the lawn and Plucky's earth covered costume. "Bad enough that you're on our turf, without you eating it."**

** "Handling it?" Shirley looked at the Perfecto seniors. Danforth Drake had a crossbow, the bolt already in the groove wrapped in cotton rag and scenting of rubbing alcohol. Shirley's eyes went wide as he pulled out a gold-plated cigarette lighter. "I can see your idea of handling it."**

"**Give us a better idea, then," Rhubella looked hard at her. "You've got about five minutes – if that. Once this building springs a leak we're going to have to fire. Dip burns."**

** There came a muffled crash from inside the building. A few seconds later the sick light began to spread – this time from the ground floor window.**

** Danforth yelped in alarm. "The floor's caved in! It's spreading through the building!" He raised his crossbow.**

** "You can't fire – you don't know if there's anyone in there!" Plucky stepped forwards. "Ha! Your puny bow is no match for the manly chest of the mallard of steel, the Toxic Avenger!"**

** Margot gave him a slow, ironic clapping. She stepped up close to Plucky, a seductive smile on her bill. "Well, hello, green and handsome. It's been a long time."**

** Plucky's eyes crossed. Even in the dim light Margot was a sight that had its effect on him. She was still dressed for the dance in an electric blue gown that shimmered in the moonlight. Margot was half a head taller than him and the rest of her figure had filled out in all the ways a pure avian woman never did. A strangled squawk emerged from his beak, and his body trembled.**

** "Margot?" Rhubella looked around, taking in the scene. Both Danforth and Shirley were visibly fuming in jealousy, and Shirley's aura was beginning to glow as it charged up. She would normally have savoured the scene like a fine wine, and let Margot have her fun with the Acme drake. Normally she was not standing next to a slowly dissolving building that could spring a lethal leak any second. "We do not have time for this. If there was anybody in that building – they're just a stain on the floor now. And if we don't stop this leak one way or another – so are we!"**

** "You have like totally got to check," Shirley insisted. **

** Margot laughed, her feather-hand stroking under Plucky's beak. "What do you think's inside that building, sister – eau de cologne? Any toon in there is already history. There won't even be a scrap of their model sheet left. We're going to be firing at the first sign of a leak. Do you want to open the door and let it out sooner?"**

** Shirley hesitated. She had to admit it sounded as if Margot was right. Suddenly an idea struck her, and she smiled. "You Perfectos are so crude. Watch this." At her command her aura separated from her material body, and floated through the wall. "Dip can melt walls fer sure – but energy forms, no."**

** "You still have only until it starts to leak, then we haul out tails a hundred yards clear and Danny-boy does his William Tell thing." Roderick jerked a thumb towards the distant lights of Acme Acres on the horizon. "You've been cutting film classes at the Loser-versity? Even if there was anyone alive in there – you should remember this one? "**_**The greatest good for the greatest number**_**". The kind of thing you Loo-sers walk around actually believing, I thought."**

** "We can't take chances. Nobody knows enough about Dip any more, or if they do they're not saying." Rhubella faced Shirley squarely. "Well, do you know?"**

** Shirley drew on her aura's power, even though her astral shelf was yards away clambering over the corroded remains of internal walls. She narrowed her eyes. "I can find someone who does."**

** "Oh?" Rhubella handed over her telephone. "Be my guest. You'll be lucky to find anyone this time of night. Besides, almost all the toons who worked on the stuff years ago are dead."**

** "That," Shirley smiled, assuming her lotus position "Is what I'm totally counting on." The loon levitated a yard off the ground, a shimmering light surrounding her. "I call upon the spirit world … to the shades of ones who first made dip, who put it into the bombs and rockets and other way uncool things … I call on one of you to aid us with your knowledge." There was a pause, and her head cocked to one side as if listening to a distant voice. "Why? 'Cause it will be a few points back towards the light from where your totally bum karma dropped you!"**

** For a few seconds nothing happened. Then a change came over Shirley's face, as if another image was being somehow projected onto it. A voice that was not hers spoke as if echoing from a great distance off. "Da, tovarich?"**

** Danforth Drake clicked his beak in disgust. "Oh, great. Is there a Russian-speaker in the house?"**

* * *

**Inside the rapidly dissolving ruin that had been the first-year's dorm, Sapphire was running into a problem. "Air is something you take for granted, until you start running out of it," she mused. She looked at the shower's extractor fan; had it been a simple window-mounted unit rather than a discreetly silent system some metres away along the ducting she would have swapped the electrical leads round and have it pump air into the room. For that matter, had there been an external window in the bathroom she would have been out through it, naked fur no objection.**

** Through the shower curtain she could see the main room had collapsed completely, the floor slumping and collapsing to the storey below. The place glowed with sickly cold fires like the pale light of a nuclear reactor's water tank, a phosphorescent colour that resembled rotting meat rather than clean flame. One spark with the air full of fumes and things would probably start heating up though – which was another reason not to mess with the live electrics.**

** Although most of the liquid dip was in the room next door or fallen to the ground floor, a few specks of the silvery dust had entered the bathroom. Sapphire spotted one, about the size and shape of a particle of glitter. Curious, she touched it with a claw tip – it did not burn her, but any local material she touched rapidly melted in liquescent collapse as if she was touching wax with hot iron. "Fascinating. And perhaps a way out of here. Shame about the neighbourhood." In a few minutes she would be out of breathable air and would just have to risk running for it, even though her fur would get soaked through with the toxic solvent mix. Hopefully there would be another shower further off in the building she could use to get clean again before it did her too much damage.**

** Just then she noticed something like a pale blue energy figure rise from the destroyed section – holding her breath she poked her head round the shower curtain and locked gaze with Shirley's astral form. The glowing form drifted closer, her beak opening and closing silently. For a second they looked on in frustration, then the astral shape mimed pressing a feather-hand to her brow.**

** "Mind meld? I saw it done in a movie – so I suppose it probably works around here. Let's find out." Sapphire said. She could feel herself getting light-headed with the fumes. She nodded, and Shirley's aura pressed close to her. Sapphire's eyes went wide. "What do you know! It does work!"**

* * *

**Outside on the lawn, Shirley's solid form gave a slight twitch. The strange voice kept the accent, but suddenly was speaking in English.**

** "Is a catalytic device, you have in there. Not ordinary T-Smert, toon-killer. Tested they were but too unpredictable as weapon. Much danger to store. We lose good scientists and workers testing – also whole factories." It was odd to see Shirley's face overlaid by another toon's shadow; not stereotypically a Russian bear but a large canine like a wolfhound. **

** "What do we do about it?" Rhubella asked, intent. "Burn it out?"**

** Shirley shook her head, or rather the spirit she was channelling shook it for her. "Is not enough! Catalyst escapes and keeps going. Solvent molecules bound tight on metallic catalyst like sharp edges of shears, keeps cutting if any Toon matter in reach. Fire only good against normal solvent Dip."**

** There were few occasions the students of Perfecto and Acme Loo agreed with each other. But a massed "Uh-ohh…" emerged from the party.**

** Suddenly the spirit inhabiting Shirley cocked his head to one side, as if he was listening to a voice elsewhere that the rest could not hear. "Da. Is possible. Is all good Toon Physics. But – only in enclosed space, yes. When gets out – is all over and no good that way."**

** "Plucky! Stop drooling over that feathered mammal and listen." There was no question now about whose will was energising Shirley's body. "And you Perfectos. We need to find a vacuum flask mondo fast – an old-fashioned one. Not some like totally indestructible titanium thing."**

** "A vacuum flask? Shirley – now is not the time for picnics!" Plucky blinked. He gave a yelp as a sting of psychic energy scorched his tail feathers. "Okay, I get the message!"**

** Shirley concentrated. Her aura swept through the solid and melting walls of the building in front of them, peering into cupboards and lockers. In a few seconds she opened her eyes. "I've found one. It's under a sink in the eleventh room on the left, ground floor. The air's still clean there."**

** Plucky's colour drained out of him. "You want me to go in there? Oh no. Not Mrs. Duck's favourite fledgling. A bird can get his goose cooked permanently like that."**

** Margot Mallard sidled up to him. "Plain old Plucky Duck might not risk it," she cooed in a sultry tone. "But the mallard of steel – The Toxic Avenger – dares all challenges." She winked. "You never know what rewards the conquering hero might claim. And I'm twice the girl she'll ever be. In every way." She breathed in deeply, and her mammal ancestry became more obvious than ever.**

** Shirley's energy field wound up in preparation to blast both mallards to a crisp – but with a terrific effort she held off, though visibly fuming. Anything that got the vacuum flask into her feather-hands was good right now. "Like whatever, will someone get in and get that flask before the Dip comes out and gets us? My aura can see where it is but she can't pull it through a mondo solid wall."**

** Plucky struck a heroic pose. "I go! But I shall return!" With that he turned into a green streak, heading towards the door. A few seconds he was back, grinning sheepishly. "Err – what's the door code?"**

** Roderick rolled his eyes in exasperation. "You go with him, Danforth. Open and shut the door quick. Don't breathe in. If you see him dissolve into a puddle, you'll know it's not safe in there."**

** Danforth handed his crossbow and the cigarette lighter to Roderick. "This had better have a huge payback."**

** Shirley blinked. "You're saving your school and half Acme Acres and that's all you can think about?"**

** Roderick sniffed derisively. "You get nothing for nothing, loon, and that's exactly what you give out. Wake up and smell the FoulPlay traded coffee."**

** Plucky and Danforth hurried towards the door on the end of the building. Plucky yelped as Danforth plucked one of his tail feathers and dropped it to gage the wind direction. **

"**No sense in both of us making the Ultimate sacrifice, dude," Danforth grinned. He pulled out his T-pad and switched it to camera mode before tapping in the door code and cautiously opening it.**

**Plucky swelled visibly. "Even you cannot resist – the chance of filming for posterity the Toxic Avenger in action!"**

** "Right. Posterity is it – like as in posthumous on ToonTube. I've never seen anyone hit by Dip. They don't make it any more - this might be the only chance I'll get. You can make me famous. Now get in!" Danforth planted a webbed foot on Plucky's rear and pushed, sending him skidding along the polished floor on his beak.**

"**Wise guy." Plucky grumbled, getting up and dusting himself off. He looked around; the corridor looked normal and the air scented only of discreet polish. Calling Shirley's directions to mind, he waddled off at top speed down the long corridor.**

* * *

**One level up and several rooms along, Sapphire had held her breath and made a trip out into the remains of the bathroom long enough to retrieve a bottle of conventional claw varnish she had brought with her from home – the glass and plastic were quite unaffected by Dip vapour, although the furniture and most of the room was beginning to melt and run. She painted her claw with it and hunted down stray particles of the glittery material that was so rapidly eating into the local reality, coating her claw with silvery devastation.**

_**The reverse Midas touch**_**, she mused as she looked around. Perfecto had been a nice place for her with a lot of potential, but it looked as if the party was over. **_**I must remember not to shake paws with anyone on the way out. Or at least choose carefully who it should be**_**…**

** Just then she spotted the glowing loon aura rising up through the floor, a look of urgency on her face. She nodded, re-establishing mental contact. Sapphire's eyes went wide. "Right! You've found a flask. Time to be out of here." With that she pressed her glittering finger-claw against the wall, the toon matter in it dissolving in a palely glowing mudslide, and stepped out into the corridor breathing gratefully the clean air outside. She broke into a jog towards the fire exit, having first looked round at the ravenous catalytic destruction that was following her out. "There goes the neighbourhood!"**

**Outside the building two minutes later, Plucky came round the corner of the building at a trot, followed by a rather disappointed-looking Danforth Drake. In his feather-hands he carried a cheap plastic-cased vacuum flask of about two pints capacity. "This is it! I had to use my heroic super-strength on the locked door."**

** "You jemmied it with a bread-knife, Plucky," Shirley looked at him levelly. "My aura was watching."**

** "Sheesh! They must have put a tax on Respect around here while I wasn't looking." Plucky rolled his eyes in exasperation as he handed her the flask. "And now what?"**

** "And now – everybody down. Like, negatory fire in the hole!" Shirley took aim, wound up and threw the flask with all her strength – straight through the window, shattering the pane of glass that was all that stood between her and the Dip!**

** The glass in the flask also shattered with the impact. Under most rules of Physics, there was the same amount of matter in a cubic inch of pure vacuum as in a cubic mile – and under Toon Physics there was the same amount of vacuum too. The flask ruptured and the compressed vacuum burst out into the room – for an instant the space indoors was linked with the ravening blackness of interstellar space. The dorm block had as much chance of holding up under the air pressure outside as an empty Weeny-Cola can under the tyres of a ten-wheeled lorry.**

** Every window in the building blew in, as internal doors ripped open like paper and collapsed into the void, pulling the Dip and catalyst with it – as well as furniture, glass, carpets and everything else not structurally tied to the foundations. A minute later there was silence.**

** "Whoo…. What a rush!" Plucky was the first to raise his head – he had been dragged several paces towards the gaping windows with the implosion, and his beak and feet left long plough-marks in the turf. "Looks like That's All, Folks – anything in there – isn't anywhere, any more. Even the roof caved in!"**

** Rhubella blinked. "And we didn't even have to torch the place."**

** Margot Mallard sniffed, looking disappointed. "You, the screwy Loon – did you see any evidence of anyone being in there?"**

** Shirley's aura came out of the building, and rejoined her physical body. "Right now there's nobody in there. I didn't see a living toon in the place."**

** "And Shirley can't lie – you can take that to the bank," Plucky stood next to her, his beak jutting defiantly.**

** Shirley gave a brief twitch of a smile at him. "In the room where it was all at – there was just a pink stain on the floor. What was left of the floor."**

** Danforth Drake gestured to Roderick urgently. "This is going to be trouble. Even if this is East Molvanian territory and the law can't touch it - Perfecto's stock is going to go through the floor when it gets out we've lost a student!"**

** Roderick cast him a triumphant smile. "While you were watching super-fool there, sweet Rhubella here was checking on a few sweet little details. Tell him, Rhubella."**

** "It's really very simple," Rhubella almost purred, her naked tail swishing. "The first-year you might be thinking about has no legal existence. There are no records of her being born or resident anywhere, or her family either. She has not legally entered the country. The only details of her existence are probably being erased right now as a computer error in Perfecto's records. Anyone who mistakenly believes they ever met her is probably a victim of mass hallucination."**

** "If it isn't legally provable, it didn't happen." Roderick folded his arms triumphantly. "Now – you two Acme Loo-sers are trespassing. But if you keep your beaks shut we just might forget we ever saw you here either."**

** "What? You can't do that!" Plucky spluttered, outraged. **

** "You don't do the classes we do," Margot Mallard winked slyly. "My mentor Hatta Mari has a whole semester class on the Big Lie, and set us a two week practical project. If you knew how many of her graduates have made it big in marketing and politics your feathers would fall out."**

** "That's, a Perfecto thing," Shirley seemed strangely calm. "And now let's get out of here, Plucky – these bad vibes are like seriously giving my aura a headache."**

** "You can't let them get away with it!" Plucky's tattered costume flapped in the night breeze. "Besides – if I let injustice prevail the SuperToons league will never let me join."**

** "Later, Plucky. I'll tell you about it later." Shirley took the mallard's green feather-hand in hers, and squeezed it affectionately. In his amazement Plucky let her lead him off, walking down the long road together back to Acme Acres in the moonlight.**

** As they looked back at the glowering main building of Perfecto Prep, Plucky paused for a second. "It couldn't have been pulled into the building – it was way too far off and too heavy. But – didn't there used to be statue out front?"**

* * *

**The next day being a Saturday, Plucky slept late and headed out for lunch to their usual meeting place in Acme Acres, Weenie-burger. Shirley, Buster and Babs were already there, tucking into a humanely harvested soya tofu burger and carrot-colas respectively.**

** "So, Pluckster, how's it feel being an actual hero?" Buster's ears rose in amazement. "You managed to fit the actions to the costume for once. Shirley's been telling us."**

** Plucky sniffed. "Yeah, yeah. I risked my one and only hide to bail Perfecto out. What a waste of heroics that was - they told us to vamoose, like we were selling girl-scout cookies at the doorstep. They had one of their own students rubbed out like an ink blot – they didn't even care and we can't make them because we can't prove it! Makes you sick."**

** Just then, the door bell rang as another customer entered. It was a rodent girl, but an unfamiliar one – her fur was a silvery grey-brown, an odd colour for the inhabitants of Acme Acres who tended to be in bold primary paint colours.**

** The stranger was carrying a large backpack and pulling a wheeled suitcase that looked extremely heavy. She put them down in a corner and hopped up onto a stool, ordering a full Weenie-burger meal.**

** Buster and Plucky waved at the stranger and carried on with their non-gourmet lunch. Babs looked at her – did a "take" and her eyes widened. "Shirley! That girl, she's…" she whispered, her ears right up in surprise.**

** "Like, I know." Shirley whispered back. "I could recognise her aura half way down the street. It feels – mondo different, once you know what to look for." She looked at the front page of the Acme Gazette, and a smile came to her bill. "Well, it looks like all that bad karma caught up with Perfecto last night. Someone robbed their strong-room. The vault door was melted clean away, but the fire detectors didn't even blink."**

** "They did? All that lovely money. Squadrillions of dollar bills. It's somewhere out on the streets." Plucky's eyes crossed at the thought. "Let's go and look! It might get lonely."**

** "That's strange." Babs looked over Shirley's shoulder. "They didn't take any paper money at all. Only gold and platinum bars and uncut jewels." At Perfecto they had a reputation of accepting most forms of payment.**

** "That's silly," Plucky scoffed. "Who would leave all that lovely lightweight currency unwanted? As if there's anyplace you couldn't spend good ol' greenbacks. What little world are you on?" He preened himself. "Me and green backs… just seem to go together somehow."**

** "Because there's so many worthless forgeries around – you're often so bogus?" Babs Bunny grinned. **

** "Humph!" Plucky stuck his beak in the air and waddled off to the other end of the diner. "My super-digestion can cope with the menu here – but not with pink philistines."**

** "I rather like pink, myself," Babs mused as she watched him go. "If I had to choose any colour – that's what I'd be. I'm just born lucky."**

** The grey-brown rodent smiled, changing tables as Babs patted Plucky's vacated seat. "I wasn't born that way, but I thought it'd blend in better around here. The fur-dye wasn't dip-proof but around here most things aren't. It was cheerful, though... you'd think my homeland rather dull if you saw it, I suppose. I'm moving on tonight; by this time tomorrow, who knows where I'll be?"**

** "You're heading to the airport? It looks like they'll charge you excess baggage on that load," Buster cast an eye over the two compact but extremely heavy-looking packs in the corner that the rodent was keeping a watchful eye on.**

** "She isn't going to any airport," Shirley told him, picking up strange associations in the rodent's aura. "How do you travel, Sapphire?"**

** Sapphire looked around innocently. "If you'll help with the bags, I'm leaving at sunset. And if you don't mind it not being a school day – you might find it educational."**

** "Education – on a weekend?" Babs turned the idea round in her head. "Hmm. We'll help you with your bags, that's no trouble though."**

** "Thank you!" Sapphire's tail twitched. "And in return – I can tell you all about a certain film in your Looniversity's film vaults that you really ought to grab first thing Monday and sit tight on. You might want to present it to Professor Bunny for his birthday."**

* * *

**Seven o'clock that evening saw Sapphire along with Babs, Buster and Shirley on one of the high bare ridges that ran down from the slopes of Mount Acme. Sapphire was dressed in a rather drab ochre costume of bush jacket and sturdy-looking travel trousers. She had laid out six silvery poles in a regular shape around herself and her pack, and linked them to each other and to some device half-hidden in her backpack by thin copper wire.**

** "It was fun, but Toon worlds are best suited for toons," Sapphire shook paws with Buster and briefly hugged Babs and Shirley. "A year or two at Perfecto I'd quite like – there's generally an equivalent to that kind of place. I'll find somewhere like it."**

** "But you paid them for a whole year here – everyone knows that's what Perfecto charge," Buster's ears were down. "You lost all that money?"**

** Shirley snickered. "I don't think so. I'd usually say, two wrongs don't make a right – but in this case it's more like restoring the cosmic balance." She looked down at the heavy cases, reminding herself it was a good thing Plucky had not worked out where the gold and platinum from Perfecto's vaults had got to.**

** Sapphire gave a distant smile. "It's been nice meeting you all. If I can work out a way of getting back exactly here – it's a fun place to visit but too plain – energetic. I'll be gone on a count of a thousand from – now." She reached down and adjusted something in her pack.**

** Suddenly Shirley's feathers ruffled in alarm. "I detect major bad vibes, incoming – from two directions."**

** "I hear you, Shirley – and I hear them too. We don't wear these ears as fashion accessories," Babs' long pink ears twitched as she looked at the long grass and scrub bushes around. "Come out, come out wherever you are!"**

** "Like, total bad karma!" Shirley blinked as Janos, Cherri-Jo and Ichi-chan emerged from cover. "What are you doing here?"**

** Cherri-Jo snarled. "Do you know what this vermin has done? She wiped out the stasis field around what we thought was just a statue of Witch Hazel. It's not a statue. She's back – and turning Perfecto upside-down."**

** "Last night's staff would be looking other way as to what happened in dorm," Ichi-chan extended her cute but highly functional claws. "First-year block is in East Molvanian territory. Perfecto owns insurance company as separate division. Insurance will not pay a cent for damages overseas – and we are getting blame – Miss Hazel has grabbed security tapes, seen us carrying what we think is fake Dip device for practical joke!"**

** "And someone robbed the vaults. The staff are getting grilled – Miss Hazel thinks it's an inside job. We can't even call the cops because it's not on their territory – and unless we can get the money back we're expelled!" Cherri-Jo's ears were right down. Behind her, Janos cracked his knuckles menacingly. **

** "I can see we're all going to have to talk about this," Sapphire said smoothly. "Thank you, Babs, Buster and Shirley – and now you'd best get far away – very far away. Running is a healthy sport."**

** "And leave you to these goons?" Buster began to square up for battle, Babs pulling out a large mallet from Hammerspace. But Shirley shook her head.**

** "Her device, it's set to borrow mondo energy from just into the future – it predicts what's about to happen. QuanToon Physics can do that, and so can I. Now, make like a shamanic drum and beat it! I predict she'll be OK."**

** "Well then - good luck!" Babs called out. "Shirley, grab a ride!" She and Buster grabbed an arm of Shirley apiece and both rabbits accelerated to top speed back along the road, applying full after-bunner and only halting when they were two miles clear.**

** Back on the ridge, Sapphire smiled as the three converged on her. "When I said a count of a thousand – do you ever watch those films where the hero always defuses the bomb with two seconds left to go? A sensible villain has it fire when the timer reaches nine hundred and twenty-one." With that, she touched the device hidden in her pack. "I can't say it's been fun knowing you, because it hasn't. Toodle-bye." The wires and rods around her flashed white and vanished – as did Sapphire and her packs of negotiable precious metal.**

** Janos looked around, blinking. Suddenly there were shadows cast on the ground from a light directly above them, rapidly growing. Then he looked up, at what seemed to be the moon – a brilliant white spot he realised was growing much brighter than it should be. He tugged at Cherri-Jo's shoulder, and pointed up at what was suddenly brighter than the sun. "Uh-oh…"**

**From two miles away Babs, Buster and Shirley shaded their eyes as MOLOT 19 re-entered the atmosphere – twelve hundred ferrotonnes of fifty-year old Toon anvil heading almost straight down at three miles a second, trailing a white-hot plume of vaporised metal like a streak of paint splashed across the sky from a vengeful animator. The three Acme toons held their ears as the shock-wave slapped past them, and a billowing cloud rose from Acme Acre's latest crater.**

** "To coin a phrase –" Babs said brightly, relaxing as she took her infra-pink designer shades off and grinned "Isn't that convenient?"**

* * *

**The End**

**(Just as the credits were rolling, Buster and Babs burst through the trailers. "Hold it, folks!" Babs said brightly – "we almost forgot – a word from our studios."**

**Buster cleared his throat, and unrolled a long legal scroll. "The studio's lawyers advised us to say this. Hi, Kids! The moral of today's story is – when you're setting off chemical weapons in a built-up area, always have a responsible adult along to supervise. Otherwise they might do more harm than good."**

**Babs blinked. "It says THAT? Let's look at that scroll, Blue-ears!" She peeked over his shoulder and read. Her pink ears went up in amazement. "Heh. It really does, too. Who knew?"**

**And that's All folks!)**


End file.
